Nobody's Neutral In Net Neutrality Debate

ygslash writes Michael Wolff at USA Today has a long list of the many stakeholders in the net neutrality debate, and what each has to gain or lose. The net neutrality issue has made its way into the mainstream consciousness, thanks to grassroots activism and some help from John Oliver on HBO. But it's not as simple as just net neutrality idealists versus the cable companies or versus the FCC. One important factor that has raised the stakes in net neutrality is the emergence ("unanticipated" by Wolff, but not by all of us) of the Internet as the primary medium for distribution of video content. And conversely, the emergence of video content in general and Netflix in particular as by far the most significant consumers of Internet bandwidth. So anyone involved in the distribution of video content has a lot to gain or lose by the outcome of the net neutrality struggle.

Comments

Nobody's neutral because it''s important

[gurps_npc]

Similarly, if you ask people any of the following questions, almost everyone will have answer:

Is slavery wrong?

Is the First Amendment a good idea?

Is the Second Amendment a good idea?

Are civil/gay/religious rights a good idea?

Etc. etc. Important things matter and people care about them. That's why we call them 'important'.

The people

[Thanshin]

And yet, only one side should matter; the people.

And no, corporations aren't people and each person counts as one, regardless of their bank account and army of lobbyists.

"Stakeholders"

[mrchaotica]

Who are the stakeholders? Well, let's see:

• Telcos
• "Big Data" Internet companies
• the FCC
• the Public

Only one of these "stakeholders" have opinions that actually matter, and that stakeholder sent "a groundswell of 3 million citizen comments, most of them, presumably, against the FCC's approach" [and in support of regulating ISPs as Common Carriers].

I think we're done here.

Re:"Stakeholders"

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't get me wrong, I fully support "Net Neutrality" What I don't like is the feds touching the internet. The longer we keep them out, the better. So, I look at the root of the problem. Why do the ISP's want to break net neutrality? It's related to an ongoing fight between Netflix and pretty much every ISP on earth.

To me, if the feds have to get involved, I'd rather see them involved in the peering agreements. They are already heavily involved in a lot of inter-carrier agreements so it wouldn't be anything new. If they simply passed regulation that said Peering agreements must be agreed to by both parties prior to signing, this entire issue would die with no federal involvement in the high level network traffic.

Where's my '-1 deliberately obtuse' mod when I need it?

Reclassifying *all* ISPs as common carriers (as opposed to some and not others) isn't anything new or original, nor does ir require additional regulation by the Federal government. Many people make this as being all about Netflix. That's just a sideshow. ISPs who are not classified as common carriers routinely block traffic, throttle bandwidth and offer "service" plans with extremely restrictive TOS. Common Carrier status would change some of that -- and put these ISPs on notice that they are providing a useful utility with our consent -- consent that can be revoked.

Re:There is no "controversy"

[Jason Levine]

In the case of Time Warner Cable/Comcast and other ISPs who also provide TV services, this is by design. The last thing they want is for you to realize that you don't need to pay them $100+ a month for a thousand channels - only four of which ever have anything decent on. They don't want you to decide that you'd rather stream videos from Netflix, YouTube, Amazon VOD, etc. The speeds they give you are "good enough" for normal web browsing. Any faster risks their monopoly Internet service provider business hurting their non-monopoly TV business and that can't be tolerated.

And just to make sure that Internet video doesn't supplant cable TV, they'll institute caps and "fast lanes" to kill off Internet Video, and keep charging you hundreds of dollars every month. Cable TV service - as it stands now - is going to be dying business a generation from now. The cable providers see this too and are working as hard as possible, short of actually innovating with their service (e.g. IP Television service or ala carte), to stave off the death for awhile longer.

Re:No one's neutral

[jonsmirl]

"As much as 70% of Internet-distributed data is now video, 50% of it from Netflix. This new video industry — growing exponentially and transforming the nature of entertainment — is getting a free ride on the cable and telco investment in broadband. Arguably, this is unsustainable free distribution, overtaxing networks and slowing the Internet for everyone."

I just gag on "free ride". 11M Netflix subscribers pay Verizon/Comcast/etc $50 * 12 * 11m = $6.6 billion a year for this "free" ride. Margins on Internet services at Verizon/Comcast are believe to be in the 90% profit range.

I can help the FCC solve this. Require that ISPs provide at least one settlement free peering point for each customer in their network with no peering point providing access to less that 10,000 customers. 10K because after all they are ISPs and they should do something for that $50/mth (i'm sure Verizon would immediately declare this settlement free peering point to be the customer's wifi node without this rule).