Net Neutrality Gives 'Free' Internet To Netflix and Google, ISP Claims (arstechnica.com)

Frontier Communications is asking employees for help in its fight against state net neutrality rules in California, claiming that the rules will give "free" Internet to major Web companies while raising costs for consumers. From a report: The Internet service provider urged employees to submit a form letter asking Governor Jerry Brown to veto the net neutrality bill that was recently approved by the state legislature. Frontier sent an email to employees and set up an online form for them to send the form letter to Brown. "I am proud to work at Frontier and help operate a network that is part of an incredibly successful Internet ecosystem that is the backbone of our economy and daily life," the form letter says. But net neutrality rules "will harm consumers and impose complex layers of costly regulation," and therefore "deter investment and delay broadband deployment in California, especially in rural areas that still lack high-speed Internet access," the letter says. The letter claims that net neutrality rules "will create significant new costs for consumers" but did not make it clear what those new costs would be.

Comments

Why?

[RickyShade]

Why are corporations all a bunch of lying-ass trash?

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the easiest way to make money.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you like your doctor, you can keep him. If you like your insurance plan, you can keep it."

Because being blatantly dishonest makes the media cry out about how brave and what a hero you are.

Re:Why?

[olsmeister]

Since a bit is not a physical entity, everyone seems to think they should be free.

Re:Why?

[lucasnate1]

Because american ultra capitalist culture admires greed, treachery, and deceit. Until social norms will change, what you call "lying-ass trash" will continue to be celebrated as heroes.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

This argument sounds like bullshit on it's surface. corporation_blah pays its ISP for its desired level of access (desired internet_pipe_size). Consumer_b pays for their connection to the internet_pipes. Are you arguing that the backbone providers are getting screwed by this, or what?

Net neutrality isn't "free bandwidth for everyone regardless". Content providers very much had to pay for their desired bandwidth under net neutrality. What it does (did?) mean is that backbone / isps can't restrict traffic they don't like based on content type. What it might conceivably mean is that ISPs can't oversell the bandwidth they've purchased to the extent they were because consumers might actually want to (expect to) use it.

Re:Why?

[CastrTroy]

with net neutrality, content publishers and distributors get to peer directly with an isp and flood their network with whatever data the content provider wants

They are only sending content that the end user has requested. The content publishers are paying their ISP for every bit that they send out and receive (via a leased line of a specified bandwidth) and the end user is paying for every bit that they send out and receive from their ISP. They want to be able to double charge though. They want to charge the end user to receive the data, but also want to charge the content publisher for letting the customer receive the data.

Re:Why?

[themacks]

with net neutrality, content publishers and distributors get to peer directly with an isp and flood their network with whatever data the content provider wants.

Content publishers don't get settlement-free peering by default. Peering agreements are usually only settlement-free if the traffic is symmetrical or each party receives an equal benefit. Content publishers have to pay for their internet access the same as anybody else, albeit they generally have a little more negotiating power than you or I would.

Re:Why?

[Gravis Zero]

Why are corporations all a bunch of lying-ass trash?

It's all about feedback loops. There is no penalty for them to constantly lie but there is plenty to gain from deceiving people.

Re:Why?

[kqs]

This is my favorite quote. It turned out that less than 1.5% of people had to change their insurance plans due to the ACA. Which means that Obama's biggest lie was when he was only 98.5% correct. Compare/contrast with what the current president says this week. (I don't know what he'll say, and it doesn't matter; we all know it will be far less than 98.5% correct).

Back to the original point: certain people and organizations lie because their followers will believe them no matter how ludicrous their claims may be. In the case of most ISPs, the people who matter (lawmakers) believe them because their campaign contributions depend on it. In the case of politicians, well, you can tell a lot about a person by seeing what political folks they vote for.

Re:Why?

[reg]

content publishers and distributors get to peer directly with an isp and flood their network with whatever data the content provider wants

What utter nonsense. The content providers are what make the internet work - without content there is no internet. The ISP's users are who is "flooding the network with whatever data they want", because they are requesting it. If the ISP has too much traffic they need to ask their users to stop asking for it.

Don't be a stooge for the ISPs.

Re:Why?

[ilsaloving]

Yes yes, we know that argument. It's been passed around for a while now. It's no less bullshit now than it was then. The customers are paying for their pipe. The content producers are paying for their own pipe. Everyone is *already* paying for their access.

The reality that has been demonstrated is that ISPs only want to double-dip, making their customers pay AND make the content-providers pay for the exact same traffic. There is absolutely no evidence that says ISPs ever have or ever will lower prices for consumers by having content-creators pay the difference.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/...

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming your ACA statistics are correct, it doesn't change the fact that insurance premiums went up tremendously after its passing. The skyrocketing premiums are directly related to the ACA. If you drove a nice car and I passed a law that made it two or three times as expensive to keep, would I be 98.5% correct in saying that, "if you like your current car, you can keep it?"

We didn't even see those kinds of rapid premium increases under the George W. Bush administration, one of the worst presidents in living memory. He would likely be the worst president in living memory if it weren't for the fact that Obama provides such stiff competition.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most publicly traded companies which many of these ISP's are have to have lots of public disclosure. So they don't lie as much as you make believe.

Re:Why?

[AvitarX]

I'm not convinced the consumer will always pay more:

1) for "Free" services (YouTube, Facebook, etc.) the consumer is paying every penny that can possibly be extracted from selling them ads etc (for example in the US, Facebook makes about $13/month/user)
2) for ISPs without competition (all of them), the price charged is the highest they can get away with
3) for pay services (Netflix, YoutTube Red etc) likely the costs will pass on.

It's unlikely that companies in group 1 can pass on any of the expense
for companies in group 2, maybe a price hike using it as an excuse, but they are likely already charging close to the most they can without losing too many customers.

The companies in group 3 will pass on their cost to customers if they aren't already in a situation where they are making tons and tons because of near monopoly in whatever they do (HBO and Netflix maybe with their original content?).

If the content providers shoulder the cost, consumers will pay some of it.

If the ISPs shoulder the cost, likely consumers will pay very little of it.

Re:Why?

[gnick]

(I don't know what he'll say, and it doesn't matter; we all know it will be far less than 98.5% correct)

As of this morning:

The GDP Rate (4.2%) is higher than the Unemployment Rate (3.9%) for the first time in over 100 years!

Not remotely correct.

Re:Why?

[Wycliffe]

the consumer is paying more in one way or the other. there is a real hidden cost that cannot be ignored anymore due to the sheer explosion of users on the internet.

in the end, we the consumer will pay more. in order to keep tomorrow's prices the same today, that's where traffic shaping and active management comes into play.

It's not the number of consumers. It's that the average consumer is consuming more and more bandwidth per user. The correct solution is give up on the idea of "unlimited" internet. Let the consumer decide how they want to throttle their internet. If they want unlimited for 2 hours a day for netflix then let them sign up for that. If they want 1M/s 24/7 then let them sign up for that. An ISP shouldn't be traffic shaping or actively managing the types of service. One consumer might only watch netflix while another might only watch youtube or watch no video at all. It shouldn't be the ISPs job to decide whether netflix is allowed or torrents are not. It should be their job to offer reasonable options to consumers knowing that some consumers are going to use 100% of whatever they offer and be connected 24/7. If a consumer was given the option of 4 hours per day of gigabit at $50 per month versus 24 hours per day of 1Mbps at $50 per month, most consumers would probably choose the 4 hours of high speed. Likewise, noone is going to pay $500/month for 24/7 gigabit. We need to stop treating internet like an all you can stuff in your backpack buffet and set reasonable limits selectable by the end user. If given the option, I would probably choose 1M/s for sustained 24/7 usage with the ability to burst up to 100M/s for up to 4 hours a day. That should cover most consumers and an ISP should be able to sell a reasonable connection like this for what they are currently charging.

Re:Why?

[taustin]

Frontier is special, even in real of Evil Empire corporations. They are the worst phone company in the world, and always have been. Their takeover of Verizon's landline business was a disaster. It made service as bad as the areas they already had.

If Frontier is against it, then I'm for it, regardless of what "it" is.

There's a special place in Hell for Frontier, and it's a management position.

Re:Why?

[dryeo]

I'm in Canada, with net neutrality. I pay for 250 GBs a month and how the household uses it is up to us. It's simple and there are other plans as well. We're careful because it is a hundred dollars a GB for overage.

Re:Why?

[Spazmania]

Frontier is not lying. Correctly implemented Net Neutrality does give Netflix and Google free Internet. You see, under Net Neutrality, ISPs are not supposed to double-bill. Once the end user has paid for "Internet," they can't charge the content provider for the same "Internet." Can't charge Netflix for the same bytes that the end user has already paid for.

Since the end user has already paid for those bytes, Netflix gets them for free. Frontier isn't lying; they're "spinning" a desirable trait as if it was undesirable.

Re:Why?

[Spazmania]

Incidentally, the technical name for this is "settlement-free reciprocal peering." It means that without either company paying the other, they trade data packets whose destination has already paid the receiving ISP to handle those packets. ISPs who refuse a peering request are usually double-billing.

Re:Why?

[Xylantiel]

It was a well-known business model to offer cheap insurance and then drop people or charge them 10 times as much when they got sick. This isn't possible anymore under the ACA. A huge fraction of those saying "I can't get cheap insurance anymore" are people who were being ripped off and now are not. But they complain anyway.

Re:Why?

[HornWumpus]

Agreed, part of Frontier used to be Roseville phone. Which was at the time, the 'worst phone company in the world'.

Re:Why?

[rickb928]

Correct, this is such a great point.

ISPs have customers who request services outside the ISP network, same as it ever has been for end-user Internet access. Netflix etc don't get access for 'free', they pay for peering connections also.

God, these people sound like your typical peer. They would LOVE to offload the cost of connectivity to their 'customers', us, and if they could they would bypass the whole NN debate. We would, of course see this in our bills.

There is probably no way out of paying, but I'd like to know it, rather than have it crammed onto my provider bill, where it willb e buried, hidden, and marked up.

Re:Why?

[ShanghaiBill]

It turned out that less than 1.5% of people had to change their insurance plans

That is misleading. Obamacare only covers about 11 million Americans. The others are covered under employee plans, Medicare, Medicaid, or VA. 1.5% of Americans is 4.5 million, or about 40% of those covered.

But this was not really a "lie" anyway, since it is unlikely that Obama knew it was false when he said it.

Re: Why?

[CoolDiscoRex]

You do realize insurance premiums were rising anyway and the trend dramatically shrunk after ACA. So while it didn't completely stop global warming we only went up by .1 degrees instead of 2 whole degrees. Really not a hard concept and one the few things it actually delivered on.

No, no, Mr. Coward (if that is your real name), that's not true.

Had the ACA not been signed, global temperatures would have increased by 17.152 degrees (NOT 17.149 degrees that some Republican thinktank lowballed).

I get sick and tired of the Trump disciples low-balling the amount the temperature would have increased. Scientists said 17.152 degrees, and they don't lie. In fact, Science never lies. Except when it claims that there are only two sexes because there are only two chromosome combinations. Chromosomes are a Nazi concept that all real scientists rebuff. Everyone knows that sex and gender are determined by a consensus of highly-educated white people from the suburbs who moved to the city and gentrified all minorities out of it while shouting "Black Lives Matter".

Science also says that men and women are the same, as are all races and creeds of peopl ... wait, no it doesn't say that ... look, I believe the Science that the media and entertainment industry believes in, and I came to the conclusion all by myself without any influence or peer pressure. Did too. DID TOO!

You know how you know that I'm sincere?

Why, I live my values, of course. Sure, studies show that self-identified "progressives" take more flights each year, and fly more miles each year, than do self-identified "conservatives". Not me, though. I don't have a car, don't fly, I actually care enough about the environment that my daily actions reflect that concern. No, really. DO TOO! And I hate the working-class, rednecks who pollute less than I do but REFUSE TO TALK THE TALK. Oh they just MAKE . ME. SO. MAD! I'm so mad! Look at how mad I am! The climate! The earth! The earth climate! Nothing is more important to me than the comfort of the terrible breeder's offspring 60 years from now. The over-populate the planet, and I hate them yes, but dammit, I want them to be comfortable and to enjoy beachfront property unencumbered. I don't know why I care about that, I just do. Don't tell anyone but I might be God. I mean, my parents always told me I was and I always suspected they were right, but .... anyway.

It's not just me that cares about the climate, but all of California cares too.

I mean just look at this:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/1...

Wait, I mean ... fuck you! I bet you voted for the big Cheeto or some guy with bass in his voice! Macho Bro asshole! Impure! Unclean! Shame! Shame! Shame!

My college professor said climate change and science and even when promoting the establishment view I do so as anonymous coward so NYAH! Nyah! Nyah!

I'm so good.

Re:Why?

[gnunick]

> Nonsense. ACA banned catastrophic health insurance/health saving accounts.

Not even remotely true. I still have my HSA.

Re:Why?

[iCEBaLM]

You are getting hosed. You're probably with an incumbent provider. You should look at going with a third party internet provider, you'll get the same (or better) service for a lot less.

Re:Why?

[outlander]

They did ban the catastrophic care plans which basically didn't provide actual care, but HSAs did continue to exist....I certainly have made use of them during the period that PPACA has been in operation.

Re:Why?

[Discgolferusa]

Wow, so I was one of the LUCKY ones that not only had to switch my plans, but ended up having to pay more for worst benefits.

Hooray for ACA! I'm sorry, but forcing people to shittier coverage just to make it so that everyone can have shitty coverage is not a win for anyone. My personal premium costs went up 15% and my out of pocket responsibility went up by 1600 dollars (at the time). Why? Because my previous plan was considered a Cadillac plan, so the insurance provider was going to be penalized for offering it. Now just a few short years later i've swung to a high deductable HSA to keep premiums down and just deal with the fact that I have to build up a large warchest to cover unexpected medical expenses.

Premiums slowed, because the plans got worst, not because the ACA did anything positive to reduce them.

Re:Why?

[Solandri]

but also want to charge the content publisher for letting the customer receive the data.

Which is why this whole entire scheme is utterly dependent on the monopolies granted to the ISPs by the local government. If you had a choice of multiple ISPs and your ISP began throttling a content publisher for not paying them, you would simply cancel service and subscribe to a different ISP. The only reason they have the temerity to try to charge content publishers is because they know their customers are captive, and cannot flee to a different ISP. Essentially, not only do they have a monopoly on providing service to their customers, they also have a monopoly on giving content publishers access to those customers.

The whole thing is probably the best current example of government regulation run amok. The initial service monopolies granted by the local governments may have been well-intended (to prevent telephone poles from being strung up with dozens of unsightly wires, for guarantees to provide services to low income areas, etc). But it should be clear by now that they're doing far more harm than good, and should be abolished. We've tried government regulation of ISPs for 20+ years and it's failed miserably. Give competition a chance. Aside from access speed, things were actually better back in the 1980s and early 1990s when everyone used dialup connections. I remember canceling service with several ISPs which dissatisfied me before I found one I liked.

Re:Why?

[jeff4747]

ACA banned catastrophic health insurance/health saving accounts.

Since I currently have a HSA, I'm gonna have to point out you're wrong.

The ACA banned catastrophic health insurance plans and HSA-backed plans from the ACA marketplace. The ACA marketplace is not "insurance". In fact, it's a small percentage of insurance plans. Employer-based plans can still be HSA plans, and employer-based insurance dwarfs the ACA marketplace insurance.

Where you pay for your own routine doctor visits and only have coverage for actual medical emergencies.

The problem with this plan is people just don't do routine doctor visits when they have this plan. Which means they end up getting far more medical emergencies.

If your response is something like "but I paid for my checkups!!!!", you're forgetting the cost-sharing aspect of insurance. You paid more for your insurance because the vast majority on these plans did not get regular medical care

It's much cheaper to pay for someone's $100 annual visit for a couple decades and catch that they have high blood pressure instead of waiting for them to show up in an ER with complications. Strokes aren't cheap.

When they pass 'ACA for car insurance', it will require coverage for oil changes, which will cost you $5,000 once all the costs are rolled in.

This might be funny if you forget most states have mandatory car insurance, as well as minimum requirements for that insurance.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Premiums were skyrocketing before the ACA, too. Health care has been a dumpster fire in America long before the ACA was passed, long before it was proposed, and for that matter, long before the Romneycare version was proposed.

In fact, we DID see those kinds of rapid premium increases during the Dubya administration. I remember it vividly. My wife and I both had health insurance coverage through our jobs, so I only needed to pay the single coverage premium -- but if I'd needed to pay for the family coverage, it would have eaten over 50% of my paycheck.

Re:Why?

[dryeo]

I'm rural with an LTE connection so there aren't too many choices.

Re:Why?

[sims 2]

That's nuts.
The cellco's have the highest rates in the state's i'm aware of and they only charge $15/GB overage.
Of course a 250GB plan isn't available on those.
AT&T does a fixed wireless offering with 170GB then $10/50GB overage.

Re:Why?

[jeff4747]

Does lying on the behest of your boss pay that well?

with net neutrality, content publishers and distributors get to peer directly with an isp

False. Netflix pays an ISP, just like anyone else. That gives them an Internet connection with a specific bandwith limit.

and flood their network with whatever data the content provider wants

Again, their Internet connection has a specific bandwith limit. If your network can't handle the bandwith you've sold, that's you committing fraud, not the "content provider" being a free rider.

ISPs eat the cost

False. ISPs sold bandwith to a customer (Netflix). They also sold bandwith to consumers. There is no cost to eat, they are being paid for what they sold.

Without net neutrality, content publishers must pay the transit costs

Oh, I see. You didn't sell any bandwith to Netflix, and want to charge them anyway. That's not how peering works.

If you're peering agreement is not currently making enough money for you greedy fuckholes, then you need to renegotiate your peering agreement.

in the end, we the consumer will pay more

Yes, that is currently your plan, thanks to the lack of net neutrality. Your C-suite is masturbating over the thought of selling a "Streaming package" and "gaming package" to consumers to turn off the arbitrary throttling you are applying. Heck, when they want a bigger bonus, they can just turn down the bandwith a little more.

you are never prevented from going with a non-subsidized provider (e.g. cogent, xo, or running and lighting up your own fiber).

I am fascinated by your delusional world where every ISP serves every geographic location.

Re:Why?

[TheFakeTimCook]

The skyrocketing premiums are directly related to the ACA.

Wrong.

The skyrocketing premiums are directly related to insurance carriers' unconscionable GREED. They used the ACA as an excuse to throw out all the Actuarial Tables and recalculate EVERYONE as if they are on death's door from every costly disease they could think of.

Re:Why?

[dryeo]

Yes, it's nuts but all the big Canadian cell providers recently jacked up their overage charges. Yea competition.
The problem is I just don't have many choices where I am, even the dial up is going (officially gone) away.
The only reason I can get a 250GB plan is due to being rural and the ISP not wanting to run fiber out here so they have a rural plan, which may be subsidized.

Re:Why?

[TheFakeTimCook]

They did ban the catastrophic care plans which basically didn't provide actual care, but HSAs did continue to exist....I certainly have made use of them during the period that PPACA has been in operation.

Hey, my Deductible is $5500 per year; meaning that, unless I have some pretty high medical bills, my $862 per MONTH insurance Premiums are just G-O-N-E.

I'd call that "Catastrophic Health Insurance"; but without the benefit of having that nearly $12,000 per year in an account with MY name on it!

Re:Why?

[AnimalCoward]

Baloney. You were either lucky, not paying attention, or still on your mom's plan. I remember premiums rising rapidly under Clinton, Bush and Obama. There was no difference in the rate of increase. It was (is) huge yearly increases under all recent administrations. I know this because I paid the premiums. However, since one example is not a statistic there is fact check: https://www.factcheck.org/2015...

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot.Org, home of the communist internet bandwith manifestoh.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with this plan is people just don't do routine doctor visits when they have this plan. Which means they end up getting far more medical emergencies.

I'm 60 and don't do routine doctor visits nor have tests performed that have been ordered because I can't control my costs, and I am far from alone. Insurance may cover a specific test, but there are any number of possible ancillary items and processes/procedures they do not. For instance, MRIs may be covered but one type of IV dye solution necessary for the particular type of scan you need is not, resulting in a $1400 charge for the solution and for the phlebotomist/PA that administered it.

You are forced under duress to sign an agreement to be personally responsible to pay whatever they decide to do/use/etc that's not covered by your plan or else they will not provide any of the services you *are* covered for.

There's no way to know ahead of time what costs I will incur as the healthcare corporations that own hospitals don't want people to be able to make wise decisions that might deprive the corporation of cash-flow nor do they want to spend the money to pay insurance-billing specialists to create cost estimates for proposed operations, procedures, tests, etc.

So, I simply show up at the ER when I'm sick. If I'm going to get billed for costs I have no way to limit or pay for either way, screw it. It just means they'll be out far more money in the long run.

Re:Why?

[Duhavid]

Allowing the ISP to extort money from content providers will not prevent the consumer from paying a higher price.
The extortion will just ensure that the ISP's get to pick winners and losers. And winners will get to enforce their "winning"
And the ISP is not going to funnel that money into infrastructure in any case, it will go to profits.
Profits are great, by the way. Go earn them.

The content providers have to pay their own ISP, they already have an incentive to keep the number of bits low, they have to pay their ISP.

You are prevented from going to a non-subsidized providers.
There are few enough players now, a scheme such as yours will not increase that number.

Re:Why?

[Curunir_wolf]

I have cameras in my house that alert me if someone jumps a fence into my backyard. If I only had 4 hours of high speed then I wouldn't be able to receive any notifications.

The real problem here is that your cameras are connected to the Internet, where some random set of strangers have access to them and everything they record. In most cases, these camera company operators actually have more access to your camera's functions than you do.

It may seem convenient, it may make you feel better than some random stranger, probably in another country, is "monitoring" your property. But in plain terms, it's not security, it's a security hole that you pay for every month.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Switzerland: 10Gbps symmetric for ca. 50 USD/month, no limits (Salt.ch)

Sweden: 10Gbps symmetric for ca. 60 USD/month, no limits (Bahnhof.se)

Frankfurt, Germany: 1Gbps symmetric for ca. 35 USD/month, no limits (FiberOne.de)

Netherlands: 1Gbps symmetric for ca. 45 USD/month, no limits (Tweak.nl)

No plan with a data volume limit is simple. You should be outraged.

Re:Why?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

If you had a choice of multiple ISPs and your ISP began throttling a content publisher for not paying them, you would simply cancel service and subscribe to a different ISP.

That's the theory, but there's no reason to believe this would be as commonplace as you say. Heck, TMobile zero-rates a lot of streaming services. Do you recall any mass migration based on that?

Re:Why?

[Curunir_wolf]

Because american ultra capitalist culture admires greed, treachery, and deceit. Until social norms will change, what you call "lying-ass trash" will continue to be celebrated as heroes.

Right? Let's put those greedy lying-ass ultra capitalists in perspective for a moment, shall we?

• Google: Market cap: 814.76 billion USD
• Facebook: Market cap: 474.63 billion USD
• Netflix: Market cap: 151.75 billion USD
• Apple: Market cap: 1.06 trillion USD
• Frontier Communications: Market cap: 571.37 million USD

You would think that the companies with the most resources would be interested in helping invest in the infrastructure needed to reach their customers (and their customers to reach them), rather than spending money on a slick marketing campaign to have the government for the (much less wealthy) ISPs how to manage traffic on their last mile.

Re:Why?

[Killall -9 Bash]

I now pay $400 a month, which I don't have any choice in (manditory at my job) for insurance I can't use. Because we were getting a group plan, it made things cheaper for EVERYONE to tell the insurer that I'm a non-smoker. So I don't have insurance. Some hypothetical 40 year old with my name who's a non-smoker has insurance.

Re: Why?

[Areyoukiddingme]

Had the ACA not been signed, global temperatures would have increased by 17.152 degrees (NOT 17.149 degrees that some Republican thinktank lowballed).

I get sick and tired of the Trump disciples low-balling the amount the temperature would have increased. Scientists said 17.152 degrees, and they don't lie. In fact, Science never lies. Except when it claims that there are only two sexes because there are only two chromosome combinations.

. . .

Depending on your echo chamber, Poe's Law already applies to this whole post. Sarcasm/teenage trolling was so much more easily recognizable when I was young...

Re:Why?

[uncqual]

In some markets, health Insurance companies have little reason to do what you describe. Under the PPACA they must pay out 80% of the incoming claims dollars for medical services. The other 20% covers all administrative costs (claims processing, salaries, utilities, negotiating networks, leases, computers, training, HR, claim review, approval review, etc) related to servicing existing customers and advertising (necessary to replace existing customers who pick a different plan, leave the service area, or die) and profits. If they pay out less than 80% premiums to medical claims, they have to rebate the difference back to the policy holders.

In fact, this limitation adds a perverse incentive to pay out MORE in claims, not less. If, hypothetically, an insurer doubles their premiums and doubles their medical pay outs (by not checking claims carefully, by approving questionable procedures, by not negotiating as hard as they could with medical providers) to keep within the 80% limit, the 20% they get to keep also doubles. Also, their expenses related to claims review and network negotiation probably drops as they they would just have to pay rebates back to policy holders if they deny claims and miss the 80% requirement. So, much - maybe more than all - of the increase in the 20% can go to pure profit.

Of course, if they raise their rates (and pay out more in claims), they may lose customers in a competitive market -- but in some areas there isn't a competitive market. For example, there are 1565 counties where there is only one provider on the exchange. In 2016, 30% of the participants in the Federal exchange had only ONE choice available to them. Also, since many people's premiums on the exchanges are highly subsidized by tax dollars, many people are not nearly as price sensitive as people who are paying their own way so raising rates in "one insurer" markets won't drive away business like it would in a conventional free market.

Re:Why?

[rahvin112]

There is no such thing as a government granted local monopoly on telecom services. No local government can bar an over-builder from coming into an area regardless of what some illegal language in some other agreement says.

I really wish you people would stop trotting out this as some explanation. There aren't over-builders in your area because telecom services are a natural monopoly. If you local jurisdiction was stupid enough to sign agreement limiting access to the ROW to only those with a franchise agreement than they will get their ass handed to them in court if they ever try to enforce it. I haven't heard of a local government trying to enforce one of these agreements since the courts ruled them illegal many many years ago and I dare you try to find such a situation.

Re:Why?

[fish_in_the_c]

$$$ - nough said

Re:Why?

[farble1670]

it doesn't change the fact that insurance premiums went up tremendously after its passing

Funny. Actually what is happening is premiums are rising, for Obamacare recipients only, not for people on other plans. But it gets better. Why are they rising?

Prices for Obamacare plans are rising in part because insurers prepared for the expectation that Trump would end payments to them known as cost-sharing reduction subsidies. Trump ended the payments earlier in October, noting they had been ruled illegal by a federal judge under former President Barack Obama because they had not been appropriated by Congress.

https://www.washingtonexaminer...

Re:Why?

[dknj]

Are you responding to the wrong post? I never said extorting content providers will not prevent the consumer from paying more. In fact I said the exact opposite.

Stop rage replying and actually comprehend what I said...

Re:Why?

[nine-times]

with net neutrality, content publishers and distributors get to peer directly with an isp and flood their network with whatever data the content provider wants.

No, that's not how that works. Content publishers' ISPs get to peer with other ISPs because that's how the Internet works. Without peering, there's just a bunch of unconnected networks, of "walled gardens", and not the Internet. You want to go back to the days of AOL, Prodigy, and CompuServe? Fine. Go start that business and see how it goes. Meanwhile, the rest of us want access to the Internet.

And content providers don't "flood their networks". That shows another fundamental misunderstanding of what's going on. This is not a broadcast network. A company like Netflix isn't just sending out all their video, all the time, to everyone. Their users request the video, and then the request goes over the ISP's network, over to Netflix's ISP, to Netflix's server, and Netflix allows the download. Verizon is trying to charge Netflix for Netflix allowing Verizon customers to download something.

Without net neutrality, content publishers... have an incentive to keep spurious traffic low

They have an incentive to keep their traffic low regardless. Again using Netflix as an example, they already pay a boatload of money for internet access. They have to move massive amounts of information very quickly, and that's expensive. If they could cut their bandwidth needs by 20%, they'd save a bunch of money. They'd do it if they could.

... and pass on the costs to the consumer.

This is another one of those fundamental misunderstandings of how things work. While it's true that when a company has to pay more, they sometimes "pass on the cost to consumers," that's not necessarily how that works. That economic model imagines a world where businesses set their prices by figuring out their costs and just adding a set percentage to everything. Businesses don't set prices that way!

Let's say you were paying $100 for a product last year, and this year the price is increased to $110. Was that because prices went up somewhere in the supply chain and the product now costs $10 more to produce?

Probably not. Yes, it's possible that the product costs $85 to bring to market, and the cost went up to $95, and they increased their price to account for the difference. Or it might be that it costs $70 to bring to market, and the price went up to $90, but they decided that they could only get away with raising the price by $10. Or it might even be that the price went down from $85 to $75, but they raised the price anyway because demand was high and they thought people would still buy it at the higher price.

Companies don't just transparently pass costs on to consumers. They set the price based on supply and demand, with varying levels of profit margin.

Re:Why?

[farble1670]

The skyrocketing premiums are directly related to insurance carriers' unconscionable GREED. They used the ACA as an excuse to throw out all the Actuarial Tables and recalculate EVERYONE as if they are on death's door from every costly disease they could think of.

But when Trump repeals ACA the companies will lower the premiums. Right?

Re:Why?

[Tjp($)pjT]

Under the ACA my rates were up 4-500%. I couldn’t keep my plan. My deductible is higher. And to keep my physician required either a much worse plan or a gold or better plan ... no silver plan allowed it. And a gold or better plan was required to get similar coverage at even higher rates. I have zero overnights in a hospital, which my prior plan could take into account. Obamacare couldn’t. I’m not the “all”, that one size fits all. I’m technically morbidly obese, though a 100-110 over 55-65 bp, resting pulse rate 59 bpm just now. And generally active ... I do have low thyroid. And flush electrolytes too fast. But not so much any doctor has cared. I qual’ed for 5x salary life insurance after an exam a few years back. My insurance company used to be able to adjust my rates to reflect this. The ACA tries to spread the risk cost over the entire population. And as I pay my own insurance and don’t qualify for subsidy, because they limit what counts as expenses, the ACA is painful and for me borders on unaffordable. Obama kept zero of the ACA promises in my book.

Re:Why?

[TheFakeTimCook]

In some markets, health Insurance companies have little reason to do what you describe. Under the PPACA they must pay out 80% of the incoming claims dollars for medical services. The other 20% covers all administrative costs (claims processing, salaries, utilities, negotiating networks, leases, computers, training, HR, claim review, approval review, etc) related to servicing existing customers and advertising (necessary to replace existing customers who pick a different plan, leave the service area, or die) and profits. If they pay out less than 80% premiums to medical claims, they have to rebate the difference back to the policy holders.

In fact, this limitation adds a perverse incentive to pay out MORE in claims, not less. If, hypothetically, an insurer doubles their premiums and doubles their medical pay outs (by not checking claims carefully, by approving questionable procedures, by not negotiating as hard as they could with medical providers) to keep within the 80% limit, the 20% they get to keep also doubles. Also, their expenses related to claims review and network negotiation probably drops as they they would just have to pay rebates back to policy holders if they deny claims and miss the 80% requirement. So, much - maybe more than all - of the increase in the 20% can go to pure profit.

Of course, if they raise their rates (and pay out more in claims), they may lose customers in a competitive market -- but in some areas there isn't a competitive market. For example, there are 1565 counties where there is only one provider on the exchange. In 2016, 30% of the participants in the Federal exchange had only ONE choice available to them. Also, since many people's premiums on the exchanges are highly subsidized by tax dollars, many people are not nearly as price sensitive as people who are paying their own way so raising rates in "one insurer" markets won't drive away business like it would in a conventional free market.

Well, you're 80% rule OBVIOUSLY doesn't apply where I live. Plus, we went from a 2-Insurer to a 1-Insurer "choice".

Re:Why?

[TheFakeTimCook]

The skyrocketing premiums are directly related to insurance carriers' unconscionable GREED. They used the ACA as an excuse to throw out all the Actuarial Tables and recalculate EVERYONE as if they are on death's door from every costly disease they could think of.

But when Trump repeals ACA the companies will lower the premiums. Right?

Hahahahahaha!

Silly git... ;-)

Re:Why?

[wardrich86]

Exactly this - and I think we have enough proof that there are literally NO ramifications for them doing this, either. You can fuck up as hard as Equifax and actually make money off of it. North America is fucked.

Re:Why?

[Frobnicator]

If the ISP has too much traffic they need to ask their users to stop asking for it.

Close. If the ISP has too much traffic they need to look at their contracts and service agreements. They can accommodate the traffic which may mean infrastructure upgrades, which translate to costs and potentially rate increases for the consumer. Or they can use their service agreements to reduce traffic. ISPs tend to do both, and customers dislike it but are willing to pay more money for a better connection. Since all of those requirements are set through contracts, it often comes to contract changes.

If customers at higher speeds really are incurring a higher cost, change the cost for the connection type. If you charge a standard rate for connection type then you get the connection regardless of if you are watching Netflix, or Hulu, or porn, or Disney, or ESPN. If you've got a 100 megabit connection you get the same the same connection regardless of if you are shopping or studying or playing or chatting or telecommuting. The customer paid for the service and it should be provided. If the nature of traffic means people with high-speed connections need to pay more in aggregate, increase the rates for the connection type.

The corresponding big problem comes from geographic monopolies. When a second vendor comes in and can offer similar service at a lower prices, the prices from major ISPs plummet. Ask anyone who lives in a Google Fiber city about that. Without meaningful competition it is an exercise in profiteering, it is about extracting the maximum amount of money rather than the actual cost of services. Sadly that is also the status quo. If it really does cost a certain amount for the service then competition will lower the prices down toward the actual costs and consumers can take it or leave it. But without actual competition it is instead about how high the prices can go without triggering a revolt.

Re:Why?

[jeff4747]

I'm 60 and don't do routine doctor visits nor have tests performed that have been ordered because I can't control my costs

Actually, taking those tests would control your costs. Not taking those tests mean your costs are unlimited. Again, strokes aren't cheap.

You can insist on getting a list of all the costs up-front, assuming it isn't an emergency. But it is indeed a pain in the ass.

There's no way to know ahead of time what costs I will incur as the healthcare corporations that own hospitals don't want people to be able to make wise decisions

Generally, the hospitals have fairly controlled rates that are covered by insurance (and thus negotiated down by the insurance company).

The scam is when some of the hospital's doctors technically work for an agency that is not the hospital, and thus not in-network. So you'll find out your surgery used an out-of-network anesthesiologist that you didn't know about until the bill shows up.

It just means they'll be out far more money in the long run.

No, it means you're out more money in the long run, since you are driving up insurance premiums. They're gonna get paid, even if they got to charge 1000 other patients.

Re:Why?

[jeff4747]

Did you even research who they are? LOL An ISP that serves every geographic location

They don't have fiber to my building. Thus they do not serve my geographic location. This really isn't complicated, but it does get in the way of the bullshit fountain so I can see why you failed to understand it.

That's why the rest of your post is bullshit. Someone needs to pay the cost and you don't want to pay it.

1. Netflix pays the cost of their Internet service.
2. The ISP's customers that use Netflix pay the cost of their Internet service.
3. Peering agreements between ISPs frequently require payment when the bandwith is not symmetrical.

Everyone is already paying. What they are not doing, and what you greedy shitbags are demanding, is that people pay twice.

Re:Why?

[reg]

Of course... I just preferred to use the shorter spelling of "ask", since most of the new slashdot readers don't seem to understand long words these days.

Re:Why?

[Zontar The Mindless]

That's great while you're inside your country the size of one of our smallest states.

Sweden is 3 times the size of Florida.

Source: I lived in europe and while it was great browsing locally, it sucked once you crossed territories.

When did you live in Europe, anyway? The 90s?

Re:Why?

[uncqual]

'Grandfathered' plans are exempt from the 80% Medical Loss Ratio rule as are those with fewer than 1000 enrollees in a particular state or market. I believe all other conventional health insurance plans are subject to the restriction.

However, unless your company fails to meet the 80% MLR rule, most people wouldn't know about the MLR. The fact that your rates may have gone up may just reflect that either the insurer was paying out over the 80% and moved closer to paying out only 80% by raising rates and/or what they paid for medical services went up (perhaps because of acquiring a bunch of policy holders that had serious preexisting conditions or just because of increasing costs). They can also count the cost of "quality improvement activities" from the 80% - maybe your insurer is spending big on improving quality :)

Re:Why?

[Zaelath]

40 is about when I gave up smoking... it seems to be like everything else, easier the more often you do it. This last time has been 5 years but there were probably 8 attempts.

Re:Why?

[Darinbob]

Standard business practices.

Re:Why?

[Wycliffe]

That's great while you're inside your country the size of one of our smallest states.

The size of the territory shouldn't make much difference for data caps. The size of the territory makes a difference for the last mile price but data caps are primarily for regulating contention on the aggregate connection. Once the connections are all aggregated, the size of the territory makes little difference.

Re:Why?

[hvidstue]

Right? Let's put those greedy lying-ass ultra capitalists in perspective for a moment, shall we?

Yeah, lets bring in perspective:
In Europe ISPs are not having problems at all with providing net neutrality.
Data packets must be very expensive in the states ;)

- or it could just be that ISPs in the states are more greedy ;)

Re:Why?

[Wycliffe]

I have cameras in my house that alert me if someone jumps a fence into my backyard. If I only had 4 hours of high speed then I wouldn't be able to receive any notifications.

If you need high speed internet for notification from your security camera then you are doing it wrong. You need 24/7 internet for notification and you need high speed internet to view the camera feed but unless you are watching that video 24/7 you don't need high speed all the time. Unlimited bandwidth encourages this kind of wasteful bandwidth like leaving netflix or slingtv playing 24/7. I'm on the internet all day for work and my kids are on netflix, youtube etc all evening and we only use about 250G/month. Granted, we are only on a 10mbps connection but it's plenty fast for multiple streams at once but we don't try to limit it at all and don't get anywhere near a 1TB cap.

Re:Why?

[Duhavid]

Wrong post? No, I responded to exactly the post I meant to.

Rage? Maybe a bit. Just really tired of that same old argument.
"The ISPs need the money, or ...".

And to say that ISPs have a right to extract money from content providers is nothing but extortion.
The argument is simple. Pay me, or you wont reach your customers. The customers that paid you ( the ISP ) for access to the internet, not to ISP curated content. It is extortion.

If the ISPs need the money, they have customers who should be paying, directly, up front, nothing hidden.

Re:Why?

[jeff4747]

We're not debating. Someone would like to exploit their monopolies to get more money, so they're throwing out propaganda.

Re: Why?

[dunkelfalke]

1 Gbps is very uncommon in Germany. Most of the people consider themselves lucky if they can get 100 Mbps VDSL.

Re:Why?

[kingramon0]

The content providers are paying for their bandwidth. The users are paying for their bandwidth. And who is paying the networks in between the two?

The Internet is not this vast unlimited resource of bandwidth that only the edge users have to pay to get on. ISPs also have to pay their Tier 2 or Tier 1 providers for the bandwidth that enters and leaves their network.

Entering into peering agreements directly with the content providers' CDNs is a valid approach to solving this problem without penalizing everyone else in the process. But this seems to make everyone lose their minds.

Re: Why?

[guruevi]

Because profits. Not sure what the bill entails because I don't live in CA but if it's just restoring Title I vs II regulations it's not going to be good for consumers.

Now "real" NN (treat all packets equal) is good, making ISP into an information service vs a communication service just gives them more ways of extracting money without doing anything - good example was Obama's handout to the ISP - Protection against giant mergers was deleted and every provider started charging for MB/month rather than Mbps.

Re: Why?

[jeff4747]

I started to type a comment that if your engine seizes while you're driving down the road and you cause a wreck then it's better off if everyone is required to have regular oil changes for the common good

The odds of an engine seizing due to the lack of oil changes is not that high.

The odds that you will develop a significant medical condition are >99%. And the vast majority of the time, catching that condition early reduces the cost of treatment by two or more orders of magnitude.

If oil changes were that likely to prevent engine seizing, then your insurance would pay for them too.

Re: Why?

[jeff4747]

You know you have to pay for the emergency room if you go there, right?

You will be paying You also know people who go to the doctor have strokes too, right?

You know that the vast majority of strokes happen in people who are either 1) elderly (thus irrelevant for private insurance thanks to Medicare) or 2) have an untreated underlying condition that massively increased the odds of their stroke, right?

I'd make a Logan's Run joke but you won't get it until J.J. Abrams a remake.

I'd make a joke about you being a dumbass for assuming I'm young, but references earlier than 1973 will go over your head.

Re:Why?

[jeff4747]

You seem to be missing that I addressed peering. Here it is, typo and all:

Oh, I see. You didn't sell any bandwith to Netflix, and want to charge them anyway. That's not how peering works.

If you're peering agreement is not currently making enough money for you greedy fuckholes, then you need to renegotiate your peering agreement.

Last-mile ISP has no monetary incentive to upgrade their hardware at all these common meeting places

Because last-mile ISP wants to lose customers it makes unhappy because they can't get a decent connection to the content provider?

Intentionally under-serving your customers is generally not considered a good idea.

To get true "net neutrality", what needs to happen is Last-mile ISPs need to be allowed to offer nothing but the connectivity - no media or telephone services or alarm or any other add-on services. They need to set some sort of QoS limits so that no one service starves any other

You started out good, and then threw it away with "QoS limits", aka, "we want to charge you to remove the arbitrary throttle we applied".

Then everyone who wants to be connected to Last-mile ISP pays their share for whatever they send. What is that share? It seems to me the video providers would be paying the lyon's share

Everyone is already paying for a particular bandwith allocation. If you failed to build out your network to deliver the allocations you sold, that's you committing fraud and not the fault of your customers.

How does this work internationally, or beyond a single US State or the USA? Good luck solving that.

You realize that Netflix and Youtube and all the rest of the "video" sites are currently available, and connecting to the entire planet, right? And they're doing so successfully? Almost like we already worked this out by having everyone pay for a particular amount of bandwidth, and peering agreements that deal with asymmetry.

It's fascinating just how many of you people think that convincing people you can't possibly do something you are already doing is a good idea.

Re:Why?

[ilsaloving]

You just answered the question. The ISPs are paying bills to the upstream peers. The directions that the bits take has absolutely no bearing on anything. The only relevant aspect is that a given network has the capacity to handle the amount of data going through it.

This whole peering agreement thing is again, just a way for upstream providers to double-dip.

Re:Why?

[jeff4747]

Your employer and insurance company are lying to you.

The "Cadillac" tax was scheduled to start 5 years after the ACA passed. And the tax was repealed by Congress before it took effect.

But by telling you it's all the fault of the Cadillac tax, they get to make more money off you while you yell at the government.

Re: Why?

[Rhipf]

Carousel or sleep shop?

Re: Why?

[Rhipf]

And who exactly controlled the actual purse strings at the time? You do realize the president doesn't really have all that much control over what is passed into law?

Obama had to contend with a congress that simply refused to even consider most of his ideas. It was a fight to get ACA passed even though it is basically a republican health plan. Sure it is called Obamacare but how much of the final law was what Obama really wanted it to be?

Re:Why?

[Rhipf]

Are you sure it is $100/GB for overage? I haven't seen any plan in Canada that has this high a charge for overage. Bell does have a $100 cap on overage but the actual rate is $4/GB. For Telus it looks like they do overage in "buckets" ($5 for first 50GB, $10 for second 50GB). Rogers looks to have $3/GB overage charge (also capped at $100).

Re:Why?

[Rhipf]

So what exactly does market cap have to do with how greedy a company is?

I could set up a small company that only has a market cap of $1mill. That company could still sell widgets for $1000 a pop that only cost $1 to produce.

I could set up a second company that is privately held (so no market cap) that sells widgets for $100 but those widgets may cost $90 to produce.

Which one is more greedy?

Re:Why?

[Curunir_wolf]

So what exactly does market cap have to do with how greedy a company is?

I could set up a small company that only has a market cap of $1mill. That company could still sell widgets for $1000 a pop that only cost $1 to produce.

I could set up a second company that is privately held (so no market cap) that sells widgets for $100 but those widgets may cost $90 to produce.

Which one is more greedy?

The second company. The first one ain't gonna sell shit to nobody.

Re:Why?

[Mister Null]

It's just what they do naturally

Re:Why?

[rahvin112]

Google didn't pay lawyers to fight this, they got politicians to write new laws allowing them to move other companies wires on poles. Even with that authority overbuilding was still not cost effective. Anyone with any knowledge of how these systems were originally built out knows why.

Re:Why?

[Rhipf]

So I guess pharmaceutical companies don't "sell shit to nobody". 8^)

I realize my examples are extreme but the basic concept does hold with companies like big pharma.

Re:Why?

[Curunir_wolf]

So I guess pharmaceutical companies don't "sell shit to nobody". 8^)

I realize my examples are extreme but the basic concept does hold with companies like big pharma.

Well big pharma is probably the most corrupt industry in the US, and has implemented the greatest capture of government regulation and mainstream media coverage (given the huge amount of advertising dollars they spend) of any industry ever. It's quite the outlier, that is, and in no way indicative of general commerce wherein companies create "widgets" in a competitive environment.

It's not greed that creates that kind of institutional power. It's corruption in the government, the regulating bureaucracies, and the "forth estate," which is now 90% owned and controlled by just six large, multinational corporations.

Re:Why?

[dryeo]

Understand that this is an LTE connection, so cell prices apply for overages. I can't find the paper work right now but looking at https://www.telus.com/en/bc/mo... it says a 5 cents per MB overage fee, which works out to $50 per GB and I know my cell provider (Fido) just doubled their overage charges, luckily I don't have a data plan there. And I've seen a few headlines stating that all the big cell providers have upped there overage charges to a hundred per GB (perhaps just in BC). But I haven't tested it.
Hmm, it may have been this article that I saw the headline of, https://mobilesyrup.com/2018/0... which states that Rogers, including Fido boosted up their overages to 10 cents a MB, just like Bell and Virgin Mobile. Perhaps Telus hasn't upped theirs yet. Even 5 cents a MB is way too much

Re:Why?

[Dayze!Confused]

Where did you find health insurance for a single person that has a deductible of $5500 yet still costs $862 per month? Mine is $256 per month with $5500 deductible and allows me to have an HSA to put away $3450 tax free each year. My wife's plan through her job was $300/mo, but only $52/mo out of her paycheck with the employer covering the rest and putting $34/fortnight into her HSA, and us contributing up to the limit again. That means that for two of us on single person plans we paid $302, or $556 if including the employers portion, for our plans both with $5500 deductibles.

Re:Why?

[stealth_finger]

Assuming your ACA statistics are correct, it doesn't change the fact that insurance premiums went up tremendously after its passing. The skyrocketing premiums are directly related to the ACA. If you drove a nice car and I passed a law that made it two or three times as expensive to keep, would I be 98.5% correct in saying that, "if you like your current car, you can keep it?"

We didn't even see those kinds of rapid premium increases under the George W. Bush administration, one of the worst presidents in living memory. He would likely be the worst president in living memory if it weren't for the fact that Obama provides such stiff competition.

Yet, if you went all the way and had a properly funded health care system you would have no premiums at all.

Re:Why?

[TheFakeTimCook]

Where did you find health insurance for a single person that has a deductible of $5500 yet still costs $862 per month? Mine is $256 per month with $5500 deductible and allows me to have an HSA to put away $3450 tax free each year. My wife's plan through her job was $300/mo, but only $52/mo out of her paycheck with the employer covering the rest and putting $34/fortnight into her HSA, and us contributing up to the limit again. That means that for two of us on single person plans we paid $302, or $556 if including the employers portion, for our plans both with $5500 deductibles.

Health Care Marketplace, with the ONLY carrier in my state.

Next question?

Re:Why?

[Killall -9 Bash]

Yes.

Re:Why?

[JabrTheHut]

You’re being silly and naive if you think they want to double- or even triple-charge. ISPs would like both the client and the web site to pay, plus the web site to pay a premium in order not to have their service throttled, have other sites pay them to push specific services, and all while injecting ads into the web sites of any customers’ traffic and snoop on customer data and sell it.

I’ve yet to see them demand you install a keystroke logger or actually sell your credit card information, but give it time. It won’t be long before they start doing those things too.

"will create significant new costs for consumers"

[Anonymous Coward]

FCC fee, transmission fee, line fee, digital fee, tax, MBZ fee, etc.

Last I checked

[Anonymous Coward]

Netflix/google/whomever is paying for internet access, in a different way then regular consumers.

The teleco's can go fuck themselves.

Re:Last I checked

[Anonymous Coward]

BS.

The internet was doing just fine before the corporations took it over.

It was actually better.

Re:Last I checked

[HiThere]

From my perspective it was considerably better. Tech sites were easier to find, and there was a lot less garbage. And almost no spam.

OTOH, there are lots of different use cases, and mine is a small subset. And if my use case were dominant, we'd all still be on dial-up.

Re:Last I checked

[Merk42]

Wow! Someone on Slashdot aware that their wants/needs aren't those of everyone, and may in fact be the minority?!

Re:Last I checked

[Guybrush_T]

As much as I agree with that theory, this discussion is completely ignoring Peering.

There is no such thing as a single tube to the internet. The situation is a bit more complicated and you could choose to have a ridiculously small link to someone you don't like and a huge link to someone you want to favor. No QoS, no routing rule, just ... simple routing and .. an oriented hardware infrastructure.

And peering contracts is a never-ending battle between ISPs and service providers.

Maybe we should have some regulation on Peering since it is much more important than QoS.

Re:Last I checked

[DaHat]

Mikey Powers... is that you? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Last I checked

[oogoliegoogolie]

It was stupendously better for all of your reasons and more.
There was almost no noise. Generally almost everything nowadays is just junk, fluff, filler, & clickbait.

Take recipes for instance. Even five years ago recipes were exactly that: recipes. A typical list of the ingredients with concise but clear directions. Nowadays looking up a recipe today invariably involves wading through screen after screen of some three-thousand word family history write-up about how the recipe is the author's grandmother's recipe and how everyone raved about it during holidays and neighbors came over to delight in her dish, and often the recipe is not even shown on the page-you have to play "find the 'Click here for recipe' link". Jezus christ!

Re:Last I checked

[iCEBaLM]

All ISPs either peer, or pay for bandwidth, with other ISPs. The negotiations of which can be quite convoluted.

That said, if Netflix, or anyone, can convince an ISP to let them peer for free, they should absolutely do it. Just like if you could convince an ISP to let you use their service for free, you should absolutely do it.

I highly doubt any ISP is allowing Netflix to do this, and **even if they were** it would not negate the fact that even if Netflix isn't paying for their bandwidth, their ISP would be, so it would be being paid regardless.

Re:Last I checked

[liquid_schwartz]

Wow! Someone on Slashdot aware that their wants/needs aren't those of everyone, and may in fact be the minority?!

That is indeed rare. Most of the minorities these days seem to think that everything needs to be revised for their convenience and benefit.

Re:Last I checked

[fish_in_the_c]

Last time I checked no service uses any bandwidth on a network unless someone connects to it and requests to interact with it.

The people who are asking for the connections are the ones using the traffic NOT netflix etc. If no one was requesting they would never answer. The ISP have need to be stopped from lining their pockets on both side of the equation. Charging both the upstream and the downstream. The downstream already pays for their connection so why does the ISP get to decide which of their requiest deserves to be treated differently then another. Even if they do , they should be forced to publish exactly which request and when , so that the downstream can at least pretend they have a choice in the matter.

Re:Last I checked

[fish_in_the_c]

turn off images on your web browser and block java-script ... it is fun.
or better yet install a text based HTML client then call tech support saying you can't access their site.

Re:Last I checked

[Teun]

Absolutely right, the consumer already pays his subscription to the bandwidth!
These guys want to double dip.

Re: Last I checked

[HornWumpus]

You don't understand how caching works. It doesn't require a 100% hit rate to be effective. Take your strawman elsewhere.

Re:Last I checked

[sdinfoserv]

I personally remember the Internet of the '90s. Back when it was used by us computer folk as an unbelievably valuable resource. People who had knowledge, drivers, insight we're happy to assist others with issues. Back before websites became unusable by multi-media bloat, addware, pop-ups...There were no paywasll, and people just shared because it was the right thing to do. It was really wonderful. ... then the marketers ruined it.

I hope Frontier burns...

[Anonymous Coward]

I paid for it. I the customer. I already paid for it.

When you say free, you mean you want to double-charge. You want to charge them to get to me, as much as you want to charge me to get to them. But they make all their money from me. This really boils down to, you want to double-charge me.

I already paid for it.

It doesn't cost you $100/month to move the electrons. You aren't buying $100/mo worth of equipment. Be honest. It is all profit, and you like profit with minimal cost. If you could get all your profit that way, you would love it. You prefer slavery. If you could, you would do it.

You drink blood. Eventually, you end up drinking your own, along with the vast pool of mine and everyone like me. It kills you when you do it. To watch you die at your own hand I just have to be able to wait long enough to see it.

Re:I hope Frontier burns...

[thule]

No, they are not double charging. There are two ways to get a packet to a network. One way is to use transit. The customer pays for some amount of max bandwidth and the packet can go to any point on the Internet. The other service is peering. The customer pays for packets to be delivered to a single destination network (not THROUGH it). This cost is lower than transit. Since these are entirely different services, they are NOT double charging.

One way, both sides pay transit. The other way one pays transit and the other pays peering (much cheaper than transit).

Re:I hope Frontier burns...

[reg]

Nonsense. "Peering" is just a group of ISPs that think they are the Internet. This is nothing to do with the Internet, it is purely a business model. One that is very profitable.

Re:I hope Frontier burns...

[Wycliffe]

No, they are not double charging. There are two ways to get a packet to a network. One way is to use transit. The customer pays for some amount of max bandwidth and the packet can go to any point on the Internet. The other service is peering. The customer pays for packets to be delivered to a single destination network (not THROUGH it). This cost is lower than transit. Since these are entirely different services, they are NOT double charging.
One way, both sides pay transit. The other way one pays transit and the other pays peering (much cheaper than transit).

Companies like Netflix already pay for peering agreements. What the ISPs want to do is double charge for transit. You aren't violating net neutrality by creating a mutually beneficial peering agreement with Netflix so that your customers can have faster access to Netflix. You are violating net neutrality (and double dipping) when you want to charge Netflix for sending packets across the public internet transit to your customer when you are already charging your customer to receive those same packets.

Re:I hope Frontier burns...

[MeNeXT]

There is no need for an ISP if there is no content (Internet). Just trying to use plain English for you. The ISP is providing nothing to Netflix. They are providing Internet to me because that is what I pay for. Netflix just happens to be on the Internet. I may wish to visit CNN, FOX, or some obscure site. My ISP offers no help whatsoever finding what I need. Then they complain that I use a free service to find what I need. A service that makes their service sell-able. It sounds to me as if these sites offer services that my ISP needs to pay for not charge for. This BS that you are spewing is just that BS.

Re:I hope Frontier burns...

[thule]

What does peering have to do with NN? A peering connection treats all packets the same which is what NN specifies.

Costs for transit at a "major internet exchanges" are very cheap, but you have to GET to that exchange first and that can be very expensive (depending on where you start out). Last mile with good converge to customers is expensive. Networks do get to charge for access to that network. Simple supply and demand.

Less, not more

[satsuke]

Net neutrality on a technical level is less regulation and complexity, not more.

The idea is very simple, treat all traffic equally and design your network to peer with the other guy's in such a way that it keeps costs down for both parties.

Netflix is the reason your customers are buying faster tiers of internet,.

Re:Less, not more

[HornWumpus]

You don't even know the definition of net neutrality.

Net neutrality doesn't make QoS illegal. It requires that all traffic of the _same_type_ be treated the same.

Which is the downside of course. A bunch of clueless fuckwit, government lawyers are in charge of the definition of QoS.

Re:Less, not more

[Wycliffe]

Net neutrality doesn't make QoS illegal. It requires that all traffic of the _same_type_ be treated the same.

This is a terrible definition of network neutrality. It allows the ISP to make random decisions on what types of traffic get priority. The ISP could arbitrarily classify youtube and netflix as different "types" of video and give them different priorities. It also encourages consumers to masquerade their traffic as other traffic. ALL traffic should be treated the same by the ISP whether it is a torrent download or a real time video chat. The consumer is welcome to prioritize traffic and the ISP is welcome to give incentives to the consumer so they do that but the ISP shouldn't be deciding that customer A's live video chat is higher priority than customer B's torrent download or visa versa.

Re:Less, not more

[HornWumpus]

You should suggest a new definition of 'net neutrality'.

I will continue using the standard one.

Re:Less, not more

[jon3k]

Who's definition are you using? From wikipedia:

Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers treat all data on the Internet equally, and not discriminate or charge differently by user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or method of communication.

Re:Less, not more

[HornWumpus]

What? Dems are all for 'deplatforming' views they disagree with, being stupid fucks and not thinking it will ever be turned on them

Re:Less, not more

[HornWumpus]

Wikipedia is your mistake.

AT&T's "our pipes" BS all over again

[bersl2]

https://web.archive.org/web/20...

Form Letter

[PopeRatzo]

The Internet service provider urged employees to submit a form letter asking Governor Jerry Brown to veto the net neutrality bill that was recently approved by the state legislature. Frontier sent an email to employees and set up an online form for them to send the form letter to Brown

I find it fascinating when a corporation "encourages" its employees to a certain political action and helpfully provide them a script. Corporations are people, money is speech, and coercing your employees's speech is a very pure expression of malignant capitalism.

Re:Form Letter

[Traksius Egas]

I find it fascinating when a corporation "encourages" its employees to a certain political action and helpfully provide them a script.

And of course they probably track everyone using the "script" and will penalize those that choose not to.

Re:Form Letter

[PopeRatzo]

And of course they probably track everyone using the "script" and will penalize those that choose not to.

They don't even have to penalize them. Just the fact that they would take note of it is enough to force a behavior in an employee. That it might become a note on an annual review.is enough.

ISP gets free Google and Netflix

[Njovich]

They are right and it's called market power. ISP's should thank god Google and Netflix aren't charging ISP's yet for the privilege of having their service, as consumers would be happy to ditch any service that doesn't offer them.

Re:ISP gets free Google and Netflix

[TFlan91]

I would love to see the backlash of Netflix dropping Comcast or League of Legends/DotA dropping Cox.

I'd get the biggest bowl of popcorn and just watch

Re:ISP gets free Google and Netflix

[CastrTroy]

I think that Google and Netflix have a lot more to lose than the ISPs. Realistically, in the US at least, many users only have a choice of 1 or 2 providers. They are also often bundled with other services. If Google denied service to Cox, then people's option would be to either move to DSL, and probably get an increase in their Cable TV bill, or just switch over to using another search engine like Bing. Google and other internet service providers can't really fight back until the ISP monopoly is dealt with. This is why Google is trying to expand on Google Fibre. Because until there are other options for internet providers, the end users and Google themselves are at the whim of the consumer ISPs.

Re:ISP gets free Google and Netflix

[Anubis IV]

I'm just waiting for the day that Netflix or whoever institutes a "Comcast Customer Fee" for all customers of Comcast, with a nice information bubble explaining how Comcast is abusing access to its own customers to charge Netflix extra—despite having already been paid by those customers to retrieve the requested data and having already adopted peering agreements with Netflix's ISP to deliver the requested data—which has forced Netflix to institute a surcharge for Comcast's customers to make up the difference. Put the information in front of normal people, hit them in the wallet where it counts, and just wait to see how long Comcast can maintain that policy.

Ehh, who am I kidding? Given the lack of competition, they can probably maintain it indefinitely...

Throttle them all!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't watch Netflix or Amazon Prime movies. Why should my internet experience be jeopardized because some people are glued to their TVs?! Bandwidth is finite. Let the throttling begin!!!

Re:Throttle them all!!!

[fred6666]

Are you not getting the speed you are paying for?

Re:Throttle them all!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have kids, so I shouldn't need to stop for the schoolbus. Schoolbusses shouldn't have preferred lanes,or impede traffic. I pay my road taxes, throttle the school busses.

I don't have kids, so why should I pay for public parks.

I don't have kids, so why should I pay for schools, let them pay for themselves.

I don't mail letters, why should I pay for USPS.

I don't walk on sidewalks, why should I have to shovel?

My money is finite, I should not have to pay for things I don't use. I'll throttle my taxes payable, I'll get a refund, and pay NOTHING.

Re:Throttle them all!!!

[CastrTroy]

Netflix and Amazon Prime don't really take that much bandwidth anyway. You should really be worried more about people who use the full allotment of bandwidth for 10 minutes straight than about those who are using 5% of their allotment for 8 hours a day. On the weekend I downloaded Ubuntu to the wrong machine so instead of copying it over, I just downloaded it again on the other machine, because my internet connection speed is 150 Mbps and it takes only 2 minutes to download. I think downloaded a different Linux distro while trying to research which one was actually better to use for my use case. Netflix, even at the highest 4k quality is only going to use 25 Mbps, so it's really not even that big of a deal. HD content only requires 5 Mbps, so it's not like most video services actually put a serious strain on the network.

Former ISP Employee

[The Raven]

All the whining about Net Neutrality is garbage. Running an ISP is an inexpensive task, relatively, and it scales very well. The larger you are, the cheaper each additional customer is. I am literally baffled how large megacorps like Frontier, Spectrum nee Charter, and Comcast don't have 50% profit margins at their prices.

For all I know they do have 50% profit margins, and all this garbage about rising costs is just that... garbage.

The only reason that this has lasted so long, and the incumbent idiocy has not been ousted by competition, is because they don't have competition in most of their markets. Monopoly pricing has become the norm rather than the exception in the US. In the EU, which is no easier or more difficult to provide Internet to, consumer internet costs 1/2 to 1/4 what it does in the US. As far as I can tell the primary driver between the difference in price is that the EU municipalities never created monopoly markets for Internet.

Re:Former ISP Employee

[reg]

For Comcast only about 40%. It would have been 50% but they were forced to spend nearly 13% of revenue on capital expenditure. It must suck to work so had for so little - a mere 33% growth. They lost -9% of their customers despite investing -10% more in infrastructure in Q2. And then the government even has the gall to tax them -50% in 2017!

Re:Former ISP Employee

[Anubis IV]

The actual numbers can be much higher than 50%. Try more like 97%.

Re: Former ISP Employee

[DuncanE]

This is the real reason Net neutrality is a big deal in the USA. It doesnâ(TM)t concern us in the rest of the world.

You need to focus on breaking those monopolies. NN discussion and laws are just a distraction

News at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

People buy internet access to use Netflix, Google/Youtube, Facebook. Take those away, and people don't buy Internet access. Next up, the phone companies can bitch that grandma is getting "free" phone because you keep calling her and the electric companies can bitch that the led companies are getting "free" electricity because you keep buying their products.

Fuck Frontier Communications. Seriously, that should be the name of the act. The "Fuck Frontier Communications Act". Every bit about how it harms them? They Governor can smile and say "Good" while he signs the act into law. They'll be better off, not worse, when the act is passed. They're too dumb of shits to see that when all the see is the short-term pie and their short-term profit potential.

Never heard such wild garbage in my entire life

[Rick Schumann]

Netflix pays for their connection to the public Internet. An ISP's customers pay for their connection to the public Internet. The ISP pays backbone provider(s) for their interconnection to every other ISP. No one is getting anything for 'FREE'.

Now, that having been said: If ISPs would stop over-booking their own networks, then maybe everyone streaming stuff from Netflix at the same time wouldn't max out their networks and make their customers complain.

Also, as a sidebar: ISPs are completely disingenuous. Some company like Comcast/Xfinity has competing services, and furthermore are both content creators and content deliverers; as such anything they say on the subject should be disregarded.

Overall there are too many parasite corporations in this country and they need to be taken down a few notches.

Re:Never heard such wild garbage in my entire life

[InvalidsYnc]

Now, that having been said: If ISPs would stop over-booking their own networks, then maybe everyone streaming stuff from Netflix at the same time wouldn't max out their networks and make their customers complain.

Are you actually serious? In most cases, what you're asking is for an ISP to increase the available bandwidth by 10's to 100's of times their current if they didn't over subscribe. You could have that, you'd just pay 10 times as much. Of course I am taking your quote to mean that you want a 1:1 relation between your "purchased" bandwidth and the ISP available bandwidth. if what you mean is "they shouldn't over subscribe as much", then yeah, that seems more reasonable.

If Comcast is over subscribed to the point that during non-peak hours people cannot even get close to their subscribed rate, then that is an issue. If during peak hours a person is unable to burst up to their subscribed rate as they snag pieces of information, then yeah, they should probably add some capability.

But, if you can burst up to your subscribed rate, but perhaps not download that 45GB game off of PSN at your subscribed rate during peak hours, I don't know that is necessarily an issue (the issue is thinking that everyone could download mass quantities of data at 100% duty cycle for the whole time they are on, regardless of the hour).

Have a nice day.

Re:Never heard such wild garbage in my entire life

[Rick Schumann]

How much are they actually over-booking their network capacity? Do you even know? I don't know the answer to that either, but I suspect the figure would be astoundingly large. That's what I'm talking about. I don't expect 1:1, but if a reasonable figure is, say, 100:1, and they're selling 1000:1 or 10000:1 then that's bullshit.

Re:Never heard such wild garbage in my entire life

[Mr3vil]

Do you understand how services on the internet work and how access to the internet in general happens? You can't "attach" servers to another's network for free. What you're talking about is peering which the backbone providers offer freely to each-other in order for there to be a functional internet. Netflix can and does pay to attach CDNs directly to the networks of retail providers like Comcast and Charter.

Re:Never heard such wild garbage in my entire life

[InvalidsYnc]

That's a great question. I doubt that we could get an honest answer out of anyone. Maybe we can get someone that used to work at a major national ISP like Comcast, or that ilk to tell us what the "manual" said as far as a standard, and what they "did" as far as reality. Would be some interesting information.

Huh?

[argStyopa]

While I understand their argument, I guess, shouldn't Netflix et al already be paying for what they use?

I mean, if I have a 100/20 connection, I pay for that. If Netflix has a 1 terabit connection to each of its movie servers in 36 different metro areas, shouldn't they already be PAYING for that?

I get that their regional fees mainly are for their local access to the trunk, but doesn't the pay-chain go up from there too? Essentially, this is the main cost (I presume) that Netflix's internet provider bears, ie their bandwidth to the trunk, which is then sold (with markups) to their various customers, no?

I understand there are some complicated "tragedy of the commons" issues at play (moreso than either side's oversimplifications) but this doesn't seem like one of them?

Re:Huh?

[Straif]

I don't think the issue was ever really about Netflix paying for their connection but rather their ISP trying to cheap out on peering.

Most peering agreements rely on a general balance of traffic. In the case of Netflix' ISP they wanted to continue using standard peering agreement while greatly increasing their traffic. This meant that instead of a 1:1 data transfer they were demanding more like 100:1 while paying no additional costs. Some ISPs accepted this and upgraded their systems to accept more incoming traffic while others refused and demanded Netflix' ISP pay up for the imbalance. This is why it's possible to change your Netflix bandwidth using a VPN on some networks. With a direct call you'll hit the local ISP/Netflix ISP limit, but if you redirect through a third party ISP who does not have that limit than voila, 4k Netflix.

Netflix themselves worked around this by offering to connect their servers directly into other ISPs backbones, usually at no cost. Once again, some ISPs took this offer while others demanded payment to 'host' Netflix servers.

There really are no good guys in this situation. Everyone is just trying to save themselves a dollar while offloading their costs onto the next guy. The only real losers are the customers who have no control over this situation.

Re:Huh?

[jon3k]

(I've oversimplified this so please don't sic NANOG on me)

Mostly. They've also strong-armed Netflix into paid peering arrangements instead of relying on regular transit that Netflix purchased. So if you had this example (made up):

Netflix <-> Cogent <-> Comcast <-> Subscriber

Let's say Netflix is paying for transit from Cogent. Subscriber requests content from Netflix, it traverses Comcast, then Cogent, then to Netflix, and the data is sent back to the subscriber.

Now, holy shit, Comcast sees the utilization on their Cogent link is at 100% all day, because that's the carrier that Netflix uses to get to their subscribers. Comcast has to go spend a few hundred thousand adding 100Gb ports to increase capacity between the networks.

Now, Comcast says, naah, we decided we're not going to add additional capacity there. This puts the squeeze on Netflix, subscribers start complaining. Eventually Netflix says, ok look, how much to just peer directly? We will bring fiber directly to you, bypassing Cogent. How much do you want?

And now you see how Comcast found a whole new business model. They want to be able to charge all of these guys DIRECTLY for peering instead of passing it along their existing peering links. You see, peering is done "settlement free" (assuming an equal exchange of traffic). So now instead of carrying that Netflix traffic over a settlement free peering arrangement they get PAID to deliver it!

Re:'ISP' is *EXACTLY* right.

[HiThere]

No, they're fucking liars, and I don't often swear.

That said, that would make "unlimited bandwidth" more obviously impossible, and some people would object to having their accounts metered. Some people already do. But unlimited bandwidth is impossible. Everything has a limit. You pay for what you think you might need. But only marketers and suckers think that "unlimited access" means any more than "you can be connected whenever we're up". Read over what they actually promised you in the contract. They probably promised not to offer you more than a certain connect speed. (Look for the words "up to".)

They should be paying Netflix and Google's ISPs

[reg]

This is just squatting from ISPs, who can set the rules (and the world view) thanks to being first on the pot. There should be no "peering points" on the internet, only connections, and the only logical way to charge is for the ISP/user generating the traffic requests to pay for their delivery. But ISPs grew up in the US telecoms market where people can be made to pay and receive phone calls and text messages...

Are they purposefully keeping rural areas dark?

[Headw1nd]

The more I hear "We need to stop net neutrality/government oversight because it will prevent us from serving poor rural customers" the more I wonder if telcos have been withholding service from these areas strategically, so that they can promise to get them service every few years in exchange for regulatory favor or just money, then renege on their promises only to bring up the same areas a few years later when they want something else.

Frontier has it all wrong

[surfdaddy]

Perhaps they should consider raising their rates if they think things are free. That is what the fees are for. I've not heard of them, but what unlucky slobs get Frontier in their geographic area?

Corps are like spoiled 10 year old kids....

[gatfirls]

Help, government we are dying without corporate welfare and bailouts!!!! We need you and appreciate how much you do for us! ...15 minutes later
Whateva government you can't tell me what to do, I do what I want, you don't own me.

Ad nauseam.

Competition

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Starlink and similar services can't simply come fast enough.

Re:Competition

[Areyoukiddingme]

Starlink and similar services can't simply come fast enough.

Starlink will be oversubscribed 20 seconds after it goes live. I know I'll have a signup bot ready and waiting.

Unfortunately all indications out of SpaceX is that they are not provisioning to deal with the fact that all 26 million Comcast subscribers would cheerfully tell Comcast to fuck off if they had any alternative. Followed by millions of Charter/Time Warner and Frontier captive "customers" as well. There are a few million people in rural locations who have no option for actual broadband but Starlink when it arrives. Their needs are going to be swamped by the tens of millions who have broadband but are dissatisfied with their current ISP, and have no alternative. SpaceX simply doesn't have the spectrum available to deal with that kind of demand, though the demand is definitely there.

Re:Competition

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It's possible - or indeed almost certain - that it won't be for everyone, but any knife put to Comcast et al.'s throat is good in my book.

Re:It's true, though

[KixWooder]

Until you are blocked from going to infowars.com, Alex Jones is not an example.

Then let Google build their Fiber?

[shess]

By this argument, Google Fiber should be self-limiting, because at some point Google not paying and Google also not paying should result in such a huge shortfall that they go out of business. Right?

That claim is bullshit.

[pecosdave]

Netflix has made sure that that claim is bullshit. The only reason Netflix is a burden on an ISP's backbone is an ISP going out of it's way to make sure they aren't playing nice with Netflix.

Frontier is a pos

[TomBauserman]

Maybe they should get their own internet working first or at least sell customers what they're getting. There's some outlaying areas around me that don't have cable service. Frontier sells people 7Mb DSL that barely hits 768k. That's not much faster than dialup and these people are paying $59.95 for it.

Decades ago on 60 Minutes...

[magusxxx]

They had a piece about a city which built a new baseball stadium but had no team. And any time another city would say no to their current baseball team demands, the team owner would say, "We could always move there." So, this empty stadium was continually used as an excuse for giving the team owners what they wanted. This city's empty stadium was constantly being used as a bargaining chip and a scapegoat.

I think of this story every time I read, "...deter investment and delay broadband deployment...in rural areas..."

No Human Fututure Without Net Neutrality

[BrendaEM]

One of humanity's greatest inventions should not be sold to the highest bidder.

Telcos are upset because they oversold themselves

[atrex]

Frontier and other ISPs are upset because they spend the minimum amount necessary on infrastructure upgrades and maintenance. They oversold their minimalist networks as much as they possibly could, and then the likes of Netflix and YouTube came along and ISP customers started all consuming massive amounts of bandwidth instead of it just being the file sharers that ate bandwidth like mad.

So now, in order to meet customer demand, ISPs have to use some of the profits they've been racking in hand over fist to go out an upgrade their networks. But, instead of just getting the job done, they'd rather spend a few million on a political propaganda campaign and buying off politicians to try and kill Net Neutrality so they can keep their grubby mitts on the most profit possible.

Now, make no mistake, either way consumers are still going to get screwed in the end, but, better they get screwed while getting an upgraded infrastructure, instead of letting the ISPs rip off Netflix and others for the crime of serving content. Because without Net Neutrality, the ISPs get to demand tolls from Netflix, and Netflix's prices go up, while the ISPs sit back and do nothing. With Net Neutrality, the ISPs will raise prices and implement data caps - but they also build infrastructure to handle the demand.

And Netflix already has all the incentive in the world to research, develop, and adopt new video codecs like AV1 to make their content smaller, because they still need to pay to have their content mirrored all around the country. And the smaller that content is, the less they have to pay.

I have one ISP and they sue to keep others out

[Dan667]

I cannot believe ISPs expect any sympathy from their Customers. I have exactly one ISP I can use and they are actively suing to prevent / slowdown anyone else from providing service. The people that run ISPs are scum and it is easy to side with net neutrality.

Re:'ISP' is *EXACTLY* right.

[Wycliffe]

Is the bandwidth in your home network unlimited?

We're not talking about something "impossible" or by hardware constraints, we're talking about artificial caps imposed by the providers to encourage people to move to more expensive plans.

The artificial caps have a very good reason. Because the ISPs connection to the internet is not unlimited either. There are physical and hardware limits on the ISP side. Sure, your connection to them might be 100 mbps and the hardware is more than capable of handling that. The problem is that the ISP has 10k customers and they don't have a 1,000,000 mpbs connection to the internet capable of handling all 10k customers at max throughput at the same time. There needs to be some sort of system in place to ensure fair access to all 10k customers. You could make it a free for all and give everyone 1/10k of the currently available bandwidith (which is what your home network does) but this is probably not the most optimal way to make all your customers happy. You are always going to have peak periods when everyone is trying to watch Netflix at the same time so probably the most beneficial way for ISPs to reduce their upstream bandwidth needs is to either peer with big producers like Netflix or to encourage their customers to do their non-realtime downloads during non-peak times.

No "Free internet" for anyone

[Dr.EvilBetty]

The ISPs are claiming that the consumers will foot the bill if the likes of Netflix and Google aren't made to pay. But, who believes that if the big content providers are charged more, they won't immediately pass that increase on to their content consuming customers? Consumers pay for their data consumption one way or the other.

Free Internet?

[GameboyRMH]

I suspect Netflix and Google are already paying for their Internet connections. If you think you're not charging them enough for each byte, by all means, charge them more for each byte. But if you want to charge people more or less for communicating with certain companies using the bytes they're paying for, then get fucked.

Jesus Fucking Christ

[iCEBaLM]

Google pays it's ISPs to carry all of it's traffic. Doesn't matter if it goes to users, Google pays an ISP to carry it.

ISPs pay or peer with other ISPs to carry all of their traffic. Doesn't matter if it goes to Google or users, ISPs pay an ISP to carry it.

Users pay their ISPs to carry all of their traffic. Doesn't matter if it goes to Google, users pay an ISP to carry it.

Who is getting free internet again?

Couldn't be more wrong

[duke_cheetah2003]

Google and Netflix pay for their connections, same as us. And in fact, pretty much every commercial internet connection is metered. You pay for every bit.

Lies. Bandwidth is *cheap*

[realmolo]

If you don't work in the ISP/telco industry, you have no idea how cheap bandwidth is these days. You can get a full gigabit for less than $100. You can get 10 gigabit circuits for less than $2000. With the typical oversubscription rate of about 30-to-1, that means I can provide 300 people with 1 gigabit connections for $2000/month. And considering every one of those 300 people is paying roughly $70 month, that means the ISP is making about $20k/month just *on the bandwidth*.

The ISPs just don't want to do it. It's that simple. They don't want to spend more money on bandwidth, mostly because they don't want people watching Netflix. They want them watching cable TV, where their margins are much better, and they can sell their own advertising.

Not a discussion we should be having

[thunderclees]

Since the public paid for and still is paying for the infrastructure one wonders how communications monopolies can decide the status of traffic.

It's tough to get hard figures

[rsilvergun]

but most estimates place it somewhere between $9-$20/mo for 100 mbps. This is based on their SEC filings. You'll generally pay $80-$100/mo for that service. $140 if you don't want a bandwidth cap (or if you go much over your cap).

ISPs go out of their way to hide this figure because if folks knew how cheap modern telecom is they'd be furious.

Re:It's tough to get hard figures

[SirMasterboy]

Who charges that much?

Spectrum charges me $45/mo for 200/10 mbps which is actually provisioned at 240/12 mbps. They include the rented modem for free and there are no data caps.

*Give Us A Break*

[divide overflow]

The letter claims that net neutrality rules "will create significant new costs for consumers" but did not make it clear what those new costs would be.

That is pure, unadulterated horseshit.

Better to curse the darkness

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Consumers should indeed pay for data they use. The argument is ISPs shouldn't be able to attach to Netflix quasi-permanently by slowing them down, when nothing in my contract allows that. I pay for the data rate the ISP guarantees. If it isn't enough, increase the fee rather than extort some of what I pay Netflix by hurting Netflix-and-me's connection.

It's the light of day ISPs are smarmily trying to hide from.

Big problem with ACA

[KingAlanI]

Subsidies driving up costs overall, see also skyrocketing college tuition with student loans

The medicaid expansion*, raising the age to 26 for family plans, and requirements for what's covered**, generally make sense. *Making states pick up some of the tab, which turned out to be a legal excuse for them to reject it, didn't work out
** the contraceptive mandate I don't disagree with but it might be too much of a political football in practice

It's a messy compromise between single payer and market healthcare

Allow me translate

[Registered Coward v2]

Free adjective \ fr \ unable to charge extra for something we already charge for

Stop with net neutrality.

[WindBourne]

This is a waste of time and money for everybody. Instead, the state would be better off allowing state/local govs to put in gov-owned fiber based on simple vote. As soon as this goes through, all isp will change attitudes.

rural areas

[Anonymous Coward]

"We haven't bothered serving rural areas, but if you remove legislation covering us, we'll be able to serve rural areas...probably...if we feel like it, but we haven't felt like doing it to date."

Having run a B2B internet provider...

[Tjp($)pjT]

I had a company that hosted equipment and virtual sites for customers. We paid the backbone providers on a fixed price for a committed rate, plus cost overages for peak usage over our commited rate. We charged our business clients similarly. So Google, Facebook, Apple, et al. already pay for internet access. These ISPs are proposing something downright stupid. It would be like me charging my clients customer’s ISPs for accessing the sites we hosted. Since Google, etc. are “huge-enough” they have backbone connections, more or less, directly without an ISP as traditionally thought of, in the way. Much as our company did before selling access, we had a Sprint backbone connection and a backup MCI connection. So we decided to defray the cost, increase our bandwidth and become an ISP for businesses. Over 20 years ago. So the concept of an ISP charging Google, et al., for access by their clients/customers/the world is laughable. It’s purely greed driven.

Re:Having run a B2B internet provider...

[mmdurrant]

Summarized as "milking both sides of the cow".

Re:Telcos are upset because they oversold themselv

[magusxxx]

"...video and web pages are not the same kind of traffic and NEED different priority..."

When I load a webpage it downloads the text first and then images. Prioritized at the client level.

When I download a file on my computer and play a game on my PS4 the game takes precedent. Prioritized at the client level.

These decisions are made at my level on my machines. I don't want someone else making those decisions for me.

This is Fraud

[rea1l1]

fraud

        n. A deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain.
        n. A piece of trickery; a trick.

This is bullshit

[mmdurrant]

Google and Netflix pay for pipes to their data centers just like everyone else. ISPs DO NOT WANT them to build out the last mile.

A long long time ago

[p4nther2004]

I predicted that ending net neutrality would kill cable ISPs.

We're getting closer.

Frontier just admitted it wants to charge Google and NetFlix more to send their content through. We can pretty much assume at this point that they'll slow transmission rates of Google and NetFlix traffic if they don't get it.

And this is the death kneel for Frontier and others.

Because if Frontier is allowed to slow...(effectively stop) transmission of Google and NetFlix traffic....then Google and NetFlix can slow (effectively stop) transmissions of their traffic to Frontier.

Google has already invested in backbone and last mile data (Google Fiber). There is NOTHING that would prevent Google from opening Fiber in Frontier's largest (most profitable) markets and slowly Frontier traffic to a crawl.

In fact...Frontier is DEMANDING that Google be allowed to do this.

Frontier hasn't realized that NO ONE buys Frontier access to view Frontier content.

Pre-Obamacare there were these policies

[rsilvergun]

that covered nothing whatsoever. They existed for divorced guys who were ordered to have insurance by the court and folks who couldn't afford healthcare but needed to pretend they had insurance or they couldn't sleep at night.

They cost $50-$100/mo, a lot less than the $200-$400 of a "real" policy. But they were literally useless. They covered almost nothing and had deductibles in the tens of thousands.

Anyway the bulk of the 1.5% was made up of these types of policies that were literally made illegal by the law.

Not all of them were being ripped off

[rsilvergun]

there was a sizable population of divorcees ordered to carry insurance by the court who bought these policies to satisfy a legal requirement. Those guys and gals were basically forced to buy actual insurance.

Of course the proper solution, one that every other civilized nation uses, is single payer. We even have the system in place. All we need to do is expand Medicare to cover everyone. I mean, it's not like I'm not already being taxed. They call them premium, but it's really just a tax I pay to a mega -corp.

Yoose a shill

[Anonymous Coward]

Your thoughts sound like some pro-ISP/anti-NN bullshit.

Did you know Bullshit Claim#1) NN does not prevent caching servers. All data OF THE SAME TYPE must be treated equally. "Dedicated pipes" are not subject to NN. That line is used by one customer. It's the definition of DEDICATED.

Did you know Bullshit Claim#2) Links or GTFO. Title 2 "reclassification" requires no such thing.

Did you know Bullshit Claim#3) It did not. I shall repeat: All data OF THE SAME TYPE must be treated equally.

You are purposefully conflating net neutrality for Quality of Service(QoS) protocols. NN has not ever nor currently applies to QoS. You fucking know that too, shill.

Re:'ISP' is *EXACTLY* right.

[Wycliffe]

How does having a data cap prevent all users from using at the same time? It's statistically unlikely that all users will use their max bandwidth at the same time. Power companies deal with this all of the time, except they have to actually consume resources to produce power. 10,000 homes in the city with 400-800 amp services. You think the power company could handle everyone at a 400amp draw?

You answered your own question. "data cap prevent all users from using at the same time" because "It's statistically unlikely that all users will use their max bandwidth at the same time". Yes, power companies deal with this all the time. They do this by charging per kilowatt, giving cheaper rates during offpeak times, and even by installing special units to cycle hot water heaters and AC so they are not all being used at the exact same time. The same sort of thing that ISPs need to be doing. For the record, I think monthly data caps are one of the worst ways of regulating bandwidth usage. Internet even more than power has a step peak usage time but there are lots of ways that ISPs can try to shift stuff off that peak. Using an example from power companies, they could give people special apps where they can download things like updates during off-peak hours or just give users price breaks for doing so.

I blame the Dutch

[ghoul]

Corporations are a Dutch invention. They are a way of putting the risk in the public domain and the profit in the private domain. Corporations or Royal Charters were only granted for extremely high risk endeavours which noone would take up if they had to cover the loss or harm. Nowadays everything is allowed to be a corporation. Basically we should only allow corporations when there is a public benefit in the endeavour. For everything else the proprieter needs to be held personally responsible

Facebook snooping

[ghoul]

How about all the snooping data facebook collects without our knowledge. Facebook should be made to pay for that badwidth instead of the end user.

Re:Facebook snooping

[msauve]

"Facebook should be made to pay for that badwidth"

Best Freudian slip of the day.

Free bandwidth?

[Stomper_Stoddard]

So Google, FaceBook, Amazon and all those other companies pay someone for their connection to the internet. On the other side, I am paying for my connection to the internet. Who exactly is getting free bandwidth?

Regulations

[Mister Null]

Notice how corporations/industries or Republican Politicians will object to positions by just saying Regulations as if the word was an abomination and was sufficient and so no further argument need be made.

Frontier....

[KC117MX]

is the worst company I have ever worked with, both professionally and privately. Comcast gets trashed due to their practices, but Frontiers may be worse. Anything they say I take as a grain of salt. I don't trust them and I assume that everything that comes out of the mouths of their people is a lie. Just my 2 cents.

Think about this: tolls...

[martinfb]

On toll roads, bigger vehicles, i.e. more axles, pay higher tolls.
That seems fair since those vehicles cause more wear and usage.

It only makes sense, in a capitalistic world, that higher usage of internet bandwidth pay more as well.

The neutrality I want is freedom to go where I want when I want to go there, at a reasonable rate.
A reasonable rate means NOT paying for a mega-million dollar CEO.
Capitalism is way broken in this respect!!!