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Legislation Would Prohibit ISPs From Throttling Online Video Services
Dega704 sends this story from Ars:
"A Senate bill called the 'Consumer Choice in Online Video Act' (PDF) takes aim at many of the tactics Internet service providers can use to overcharge customers and degrade the quality of rival online video services. Submitted yesterday by U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), the 63-page bill provides a comprehensive look at the potential ways in which ISPs can limit consumer choice, and it boots the Federal Communications Commission's power to prevent bad outcomes. 'It shall be unlawful for a designated Internet service provider to engage in unfair methods of competition or unfair or deceptive acts or practices, the purpose or effect of which are to hinder significantly or to prevent an online video distributor from providing video programming to a consumer,' the bill states. A little more specifically, it would be illegal to 'block, degrade, or otherwise impair any content provided by an online video distributor' or 'provide benefits in the transmission of the video content of any company affiliated with the Internet service provider through specialized services or other means.' Those provisions overlap a bit with the FCC's authority under its own net neutrality law, the Open Internet Order, which already prevents the blockage of websites and services. However, Verizon is in court attempting to kill that law, and there is a real possibility that it could be limited in some way. The Consumer Choice in Online Video Act could provide a hedge against that possible outcome."
Too many Dems are in bed with Hollywood and too many Repubs will scream about socialism because it places limitations on big business.
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
Should be illegal to 'block, degrade, or otherwise impair ANY content'
I also don't want Verizon intentionally de-prioritizing my Vonage VoIP traffic, for example. Or a cable company that's tied to CNN.com making MSNBC.com's images load slower to make the site seem less appealing to read from.
What we need is a very stiff, broader law that says, in a nutshell: ISPs provide bandwidth, period. In selling Internet Access, you're not allowed to block, degrade, or de-prioritize select traffic based on the type or source of said traffic. You're not allowed to effect the same by over-prioritizing preferred sources or types of traffic. Legitimate QoS for the purposes of improving overall customer experience is ok, but the QoS rules have to be (a) publicly details to your consumers, and (b) optional, with a zero-cost option to disable the QoS-prioritization of a given customer's in- or out- bound traffic.
Well, private ownership is a construct of government, and government is a construct of a citizenry, so both.
Do they belong to The People[TM], or to the Internet Service Providers competing with each other?
False dichotomy. They belong to internet service providers who don't compete with anyone, and who openly argue that they shouldn't allow other companies' services (eg Hulu, Netflix, and Vonage) to compete with their services (Cable TV and/or Telephone).
Of course, the bill won't do a thing for Vonage, but it's a start, and maybe when I stream a 1 minute 1080p video from youtube without having it take 5 minutes to buffer on UVerse and the world doesn't end? People might think "hey maybe there's something to this".
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Torrents are typically downloads, so throttles only affect download time, not video quality. And given how many copyright violations occur via torrents (percentage-wise), not sure the protocol deserves very many legal protections at this point in time.
Who missed the payment to that prick Rockefeller? Come on guys. You had one job - buy off enough Congressmen and Senators so we don't have to worry about this net neutrality crap. Now we're going to have to double his fee and go through all the political theater so he can save face.
How about managing bandwidth by setting throughput and/or total transfer limits, and then letting me use it on whatever kind of data I want to? It's nobody's business what kind of data I'm sending through the pipe I paid for.
That's what usage based billing is for. If some users download huge amounts and that costs them money, charge the individual users for that bandwidth.
I thought the 'common carrier' status meant they were required to send everything without preference. Because since if they lost their common carrier status, they'd be responsible for things like child porn.
As usual, these companies are asking for all of the protections of being a common carrier without any of the responsibilities and obligations.
However, throttling the service of someone else (like Netflix) because your customers are using that service (and so they can push you to using their competing service) is a pretty one-sided outcome for the ISPs.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Are you talking about the parts that are run on public and private property (not owned by the isp), Because if that's the way you want to play. I am ripping every cable down that is not on THEIR property.
You see they were granted easements in return for providing us a service. When they start limiting that service they should lose their right of way and then they won't have a network anymore.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
"f you are streaming an hour long 10GB video, does it matter if it buffers in 10 minutes or 48 minutes?"
That is the whole point of neutrality. If they make me wait 48 minutes for my online video, but theirs starts playing in 10 seconds, am I steered towards their solution? And why, because it;s cheaper, better, or just because they messed with the packets?
Fairness, monopoly practices, and the concept of Internet service as a utility and not a service in and of itself are at stake here. If you let your ISP dictate what you can and can't reach without interference, you will see them interfere with everything. And you will not have Internet access, you will have Comcast or Time-Warner or Cox or Verizon. And whatever they wish to let you have. For whatever extra fee they can get away with.
Whether they disclose it or not. You'll never know.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
>Sorry, but ISPs are common carriers
Unfortunately they are not. Nor do they want to be
But really in no uncertain terms, and we have gone over this time and time again on this site, ISP's are not Common Carriers.
They are considered ESP's (Enhanced Service Providers) by the FCC>.
So lets please not start this nonsense up again.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
How is the ISP supposed to know the difference between "streaming" and "downloading to a mobile device to watch later (as fast as possible because I'm trying to get out the door)?" Moreover, why would we want the ISP to know the difference?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Doesn't matter. I own my car, my house, and my gun, and there are plenty of restrictions on what I can do with any of those things, because they affect other people. There are even more restrictions on what I can do with the one thing I own unquestionably: my body. Ownership is not the question here.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
In addition, many of these networks were built thanks to an infusion of taxpayer dollars to the companies in question in exchange for some promises that the ISPs then "forgot" about when it came time to deliver (and used their lobbying muscle to prevent anyone holding them to their promises).
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
His profile doesn't seem to have Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon listed as major contributors, so I'd guess this man is honestly trying to do something for his constituents. It's also worth noting that he is doing this in spite of Verizon being a major source of funding. Also related and notable, he is retiring at the end of the current Congress -- he came out in favor of gay marriage this year too, and in West Virginia that probably means something. I get the impression he's trying to leave a good legacy, and it's nice to see that.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
I think you misread that a bit.
Both the 10 minute buffer and the 48 minute buffer can hit play and start watching immediately. The example is an hour long video, the difference being the 10 minute download used 5 times the bandwidth for the same end effect, meaning in a bandwidth limited scenario that user prevent 5 other users from being able to do the same thing.
That's the basis of the idea, allowing throttling that doesn't effect playback, but prevents spikes in usage from preventing others the same access.
There's a huge opportunity for improvement by applying programming ideas to the legislative process (version control, "parsing" the laws to find duplicate code, conflicts, etc. -- legalese seems a lot more like a programming language than regular English, by the way)... The hard part would be getting the lawyers to care.
Also, you're doing it wrong.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
And given how many copyright violations occur via torrents (percentage-wise), not sure the protocol deserves very many legal protections at this point in time.
Now there's an attitude that deserves no respect... like copyright itself. I don't want anybody deciding what protocols I can transmit/receive. I only want a pipe. That's what the ISPs should provide. Throttling is a form of censorship.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Just like murder & arson are constructs of government... codifications in law of what was/is a long standing convention.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
If those people are simply your customers, then the best way to help them is by creating competition to your business.
Speaking about your car, house, and gun — do you honestly accept all restrictions imposed as just? I doubt it...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The bill being discussed is a very limited form of the Network Neutrality concept.
> given how many copyright violations ...
By that metric, http and https do not deserve protection either. Consider the many many sites that have "pirated" movies, images, lyrics, term papers, basic research available through those protocols.
I find your ragging on the torrent protocol based on the content moved by it disturbing. But you've hit the inference on the head, though: netflix and youtube have a lot of money riding on "neutrality" for their content. Bittorrent does not.
The answer to this problem is simple. Get Weights and Measures involved. Have them randomly test internet connections over a variety of ports to a variety of destinations. If the ISP is found lacking force them to refund the different to the customer. Just like if they were selling gas and the gas pump were over reporting.
The alternative would be to have the ISPs charge per MB delivered. We'd see them beefing up the trunks to their remotes pretty damned quickly then. Suddenly file shares and Netflix users would be their best friends instead of what they are today... annoying, unprofitable problems.
Here's one result from a quick Google search: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131012/02124724852/decades-failed-promises-verizon-it-promises-fiber-to-get-tax-breaks-then-never-delivers.shtml
Basically, Verizon asked for massive tax breaks ($2.1 billion) in 1994. In exchange, they said they would wire all homes up with fiber by 2015. By 2004, they were supposed to have 50% of homes wired, but didn't have any. Now they have halted all FIOS expansion and are basically reneging on the promise entirely. Of course, they're claiming that wording in the contract allows them to do some of this. (Stuff like lines "passing" homes which they claim means they can run a line near a home and that home counts even if that home isn't hooked up to the fiber.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Considering that everything government does is the opposite of what it says:
"Affordable Care Act" = Unaffordable Higher Premiums for Everyone Who didn't Already Qualify for Medicaid Act
"Patriot Act" = UnAmerican Orwellian Surveillance, Torture, and Secret Tribunal Act
"No Child Left Behind" = No Child Gets Ahead
"War on Drugs" = well, you get the point...
So. What hides behind the cute title "Consumer Choice in Online Video Act?"
That I'm right, and you don't like it, doesn't mean I'm a troll.
Now a 3rd option is in my area. Haven't noticed any throtteling on Netflix or Youtube. Even a test torrent worked just fine.
Part of the problem is that the government defines "competition" (especially in communication regulation, ever since the initial rollout of analog cellphone service) as starting with two competitors. It writes regulations that stop pushing for competition at two.
As I understand it, with two "competitors", rational pricing optmization algorithms actually drive them to splitting the customer base about equally with a high profit margin. No collusion is necessary - the price and market share transmit enough information to drive the effect.
With four or more you're virtually certain to get somebody squeezed into a small market share but still able to survive. His best strategy, near term, is to compete with a low price or better price:performance ratio and grab market share. This starts a price or price:performance war that drives the market price toward cost plus a livable profit margin and/or makes the better service necessary for market survival. By the time this settles out the little guy is usually a big enough guy that he doesn't get squeezed out.
With three competitors the high profit / low service level equilibrium is somewhat unstable, so it might go any of several ways (three gougers, squeeze out the little guy, or {usually} the price/service war).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way