Comcast Says Should Be Able To Create Internet Fast Lanes For Self-Driving Cars (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Comcast filed comments in support of the FCC's plan to kill the 2015 net neutrality rules today. And while pretty much everything in them is expected -- Comcast thinks the rules are burdensome and hurt investment, yet it says it generally supports the principles of net neutrality -- there's one telling new quirk that stands out in its phrasing: Comcast now says it's in support of a ban on "anticompetitive paid prioritization," which is really a way of saying paid prioritization should be allowed. "The commission also should bear in mind that a more flexible approach to prioritization may be warranted and may be beneficial to the public," Comcast says in its filing. The key qualification is "anticompetitive," which is a term that could be interpreted in a lot of different ways depending on who's defining it.

Comcast doesn't just see paid fast lanes being useful for medicine, however. It also thinks they might be fair to sell to automakers for use in autonomous vehicles. "Likewise, for autonomous vehicles that may require instantaneous data transmission, black letter prohibitions on paid prioritization may actually stifle innovation instead of encouraging it," the filing says. This makes Comcast's position pretty confusing. Comcast says it opposes prioritizing one website over another. It even suggests the commission adopt a "strong presumption against" agreements that benefit an ISP's own content over competitors' work, but it's not clear how benefiting one car company or telemedicine company over another is any different.

Comments

Bullshit...

[jwhyche]

My comcast internet service has been up and down for the past year. Every time I call to get it fixed I get the same song and dance. We are or have sent someone out to fix it and this is no longer a problem. Only to have it go down for a week or so later.

So, if they can't keep my fucking cable modem up a month or so, why the hell should I trust them with a automatic car?

Re:Actually fixing the problem

[dgatwood]

Background: The existing rule was notable in that 1) It was a gross overreach for the FCC, in that it was implemented under Title II classification 2) It actually does not completely or correctly implement net neutrality (in the way people expect when they use the term).

IMO, it solves all of the most egregious problems. And I don't think it is an overreach. The purpose of Title II classification was historically to cover voice telephony. A large percentage of Internet users now do their voice telephony over broadband. Therefore, it is completely reasonable to treat the underlying broadband under Title II, as it would be impossible to enforce Title II on telephony companies without the underlying communication infrastructure being covered by similar laws.

In short, instead of calling everyone stupid ...

Whoa there. I didn't call everyone stupid. I respect some people who disagree with the Title II reclassification. I just don't respect people who make patently absurd claims, like saying that self-driving cars won't be possible without paid prioritization (when, in fact, self-driving cars barely use the Internet at all; they don't need it).

Just to get things started, how about the law is implemented not solely for the internet, but as an anti-trust problem? We could have the law enforced by the FTC instead of the FCC, and therefore apply not only to the internet, but other forms of communication and trade as well. (For example: Visa and Mastercard must treat all clients equally, and not deny certain companies from using their services, or charge different per-transaction amounts for different companies.)

In theory, you bet. The problem is that the FTC has been completely toothless for as long as I can remember. At least the FCC occasionally acts. :-)

I'm not going to dig into the problem of peering agreements and the way they've been set up, as that's not my area of expertise. Instead, I'll focus on the consumer problems.

The fundamental problem is that Internet service is a commodity. One provider that passes packets is as good as another, assuming they all provide the same quantity per unit time and with similar levels of quality. There are very narrow areas in which they can compete, mostly involving the amount of speed that they provide. So to provide any useful value-add, companies are forced to package unrelated services, such as cable TV, telephone, video-on-demand, etc. Because those services compete with other Internet services, but are almost always provided by servers within the company's network, those services are almost inherently less affected by network speeds than third-party services unless the providers take reasonable steps to ensure that services are not getting de facto throttled by insufficient external bandwidth.

The ideal solution would be to pass a federal broadband access act that creates an unfunded mandate for states to provide fiber to every home and business by a particular date, owned by the state, and leased to any ISP that wants to lease lines. This would create a huge flurry of competition that would largely negate the need for any sort of additional net neutrality regulation. But the cable and phone companies would never let such a law pass.

A slightly less ideal solution would be to take the leased line rules that currently apply only to telephone lines (IIRC) and extending them to all companies that own any communications infrastructure (whether fiber, coax, twisted pair, or cellular). Specifically, require that they make that infrastructure available to any ISP that wants to provide service, at a cost just above the cost of maintaining the wires. This would make it trivial to have proper competition in broadband. This would, of course, cause all of the existing ISPs to wet themselves, and they would find ways to guarantee that any such bill never saw the light of day