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ISPs Won't Promise To Treat All Traffic Equally After Net Neutrality (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The FCC voted to put an end to net neutrality, giving internet providers free rein to deliver service at their own discretion. There's really only one condition here: internet providers will have to disclose their policies regarding "network management practices, performance, and commercial terms." So if ISPs want to block websites, throttle your connection, or charge certain websites more, they'll have to admit it. We're still too far out to know exactly what disclosures all the big ISPs are going to make -- the rules (or lack thereof) don't actually go into effect for another few months -- but many internet providers have been making statements throughout the year about their stance on net neutrality, which ought to give some idea of where they'll land. We reached out to 10 big or notable ISPs to see what their stances are on three core tenets of net neutrality: no blocking, no throttling, and no paid prioritization. Not all of them answered, and the answers we did get are complicated. [The Verge reached out to Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, Charter (Spectrum), Cox, Altice USA (Optimum and SuddenLink), and Google Fi and Google Fiber.]
Many ISPs say they support some or all of these core rules, but there's a big caveat there: for six of the past seven years, there have been net neutrality rules in place at the FCC. That means all of the companies we checked with have had to abide by the no blocking, no throttling, and no paid prioritization rules. It means that they can say, and be mostly correct in saying, that they've long followed those rules. But it is, on some level, because they've had to. What actually matters is which policies ISPs say they'll keep in the future, and few are making commitments about that. In fact, all of the companies we contacted (with the exception of Google) have supported the FCC's plan to remove the current net neutrality rules. None of the ISPs we contacted will make a commitment -- or even a comment -- on paid fast lanes and prioritization. And this is really where we expect to see problems: ISPs likely won't go out and block large swaths of the web, but they may start to give subtle advantages to their own content and the content of their partners, slowly shaping who wins and loses online. Comcast: Comcast says it currently doesn't block, throttle content, or offer paid fast lanes, but hasn't committed to not doing so in the future.
AT&T: AT&T has committed to not blocking or throttling websites in the future. However, its stance around fast lanes is unclear.
Verizon: Verizon indicates that, at least in the immediate future, it will not block legal content. As for throttling and fast lanes, the company has no stance, and even seems to be excited to use the absence of rules to its advantage.
T-Mobile: T-Mobile makes no commitments to not throttle content or offer paid fast lanes and is unclear on its commitment to not blocking sites and services. It's already involved in programs that advantage some services over others.
Sprint: Sprint makes no commitments on net neutrality, but suggests it doesn't have plans to offer a service that would block sites.
Charter (Spectrum): Charter doesn't make any guarantees, but the company indicates that it's currently committed to not blocking or throttling customers.
Cox: Cox says it won't block or throttle content, even without net neutrality. It won't make commitments on zero-rating or paid fast lanes.
Altice USA (Optimum and SuddenLink): Altice doesn't currently block or throttle and suggests it will keep those policies, though without an explicit commitment. The company doesn't comment on prioritizing one service over another.
Google Fi and Google Fiber: Google doesn't make any promises regarding throttling and paid prioritization. However, it is the only company to state that it believes paid prioritization would be harmful.
Many ISPs say they support some or all of these core rules, but there's a big caveat there: for six of the past seven years, there have been net neutrality rules in place at the FCC. That means all of the companies we checked with have had to abide by the no blocking, no throttling, and no paid prioritization rules. It means that they can say, and be mostly correct in saying, that they've long followed those rules. But it is, on some level, because they've had to. What actually matters is which policies ISPs say they'll keep in the future, and few are making commitments about that. In fact, all of the companies we contacted (with the exception of Google) have supported the FCC's plan to remove the current net neutrality rules. None of the ISPs we contacted will make a commitment -- or even a comment -- on paid fast lanes and prioritization. And this is really where we expect to see problems: ISPs likely won't go out and block large swaths of the web, but they may start to give subtle advantages to their own content and the content of their partners, slowly shaping who wins and loses online. Comcast: Comcast says it currently doesn't block, throttle content, or offer paid fast lanes, but hasn't committed to not doing so in the future.
AT&T: AT&T has committed to not blocking or throttling websites in the future. However, its stance around fast lanes is unclear.
Verizon: Verizon indicates that, at least in the immediate future, it will not block legal content. As for throttling and fast lanes, the company has no stance, and even seems to be excited to use the absence of rules to its advantage.
T-Mobile: T-Mobile makes no commitments to not throttle content or offer paid fast lanes and is unclear on its commitment to not blocking sites and services. It's already involved in programs that advantage some services over others.
Sprint: Sprint makes no commitments on net neutrality, but suggests it doesn't have plans to offer a service that would block sites.
Charter (Spectrum): Charter doesn't make any guarantees, but the company indicates that it's currently committed to not blocking or throttling customers.
Cox: Cox says it won't block or throttle content, even without net neutrality. It won't make commitments on zero-rating or paid fast lanes.
Altice USA (Optimum and SuddenLink): Altice doesn't currently block or throttle and suggests it will keep those policies, though without an explicit commitment. The company doesn't comment on prioritizing one service over another.
Google Fi and Google Fiber: Google doesn't make any promises regarding throttling and paid prioritization. However, it is the only company to state that it believes paid prioritization would be harmful.
Netflix is already paying for bandwidth. They are paying their ISP for the bandwidth they consume.
Verizon, Comcast, et al are already being paid for they bandwidth the use. Their customers pay them $x/mo for y Mbps and increasingly z GB/mo. Them charging Netflix is nothing more than double-dipping - charging Netflix for something that the ISP's customers have already paid them for. This is like you going to a restaurant, ordering and paying for steak, and the restaurant claiming that this somehow entitles them to charge the cattle rancher a steak processing and butchering fee. Even though the rancher has already paid those costs via the slaughterhouse which he took his cattle to.
The only reason the ISPs able to get away with it is because local governments have granted them a local Internet service monopoly. If there were actually competition among cable and DSL Internet services, any ISP which threatened to throttle Netflix if Netflix didn't pay them would be shooting themselves in the foot. Their customers would complain to their neighbor that Netflix has been really flaky lately, and their neighbor would say Netflix streams just fine at his house. And the customers would simply cancel service and switch to the neighbor's ISP.
That is a lie. Nobody is required to peer with anybody else. If an ISP doesn't want to peer with Netflix, they don't have to. They can still get the data through transit, and Netflix pays for that, just like ISPs pay for transit. What net neutrality means is that an ISP can not single out on a link and throttle that data to "encourage" Netflix to buy direct access to the ISP network or to pay to get unthrottled.
You mean documents stored on google servers. Did you even read the article?
You are a lying sack of shit.
Here is the video of Ajit Pai being a dumbass. On YouTube. Right now.
https://youtu.be/JqONIPwidQw
You are welcome on my lawn.
Netflix pulled the whole stunt in the first place because ISPs asked Netflix to pay for all the bandwidth it was using.
The ISP has customers, the customers ask for data, and it's the ISP's job to deliver to them. It's not Netflix using the bandwidth, it's the ISP's customers.
This is the whole point of net neutrality: the ISP's customers ask for some bits, and it's the ISP's job to deliver them without fucking around with them.
It's the ISP's job to figure how to make money from their customers. If the customers are using "too much" data then break out the spreadsheets and change your price points.
Netflix pulled the whole stunt in the first place because ISPs asked Netflix to pay for all the bandwidth it was using.
Fucking corporate shill.
Those ISPs already sold that bandwidth to their customers.
You're saying netflix should pay for bandwitch they've already paid for because Comcast's users are using the service they TOO paid for and Comcast doesn't like that.
SJW n. One who posts facts.