Slashdot Mirror


Bill That Would Restore Net Neutrality Moves Forward Despite Telecom's Best Efforts To Kill It (vice.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Last month, Democrats introduced a simple three page bill that would do one thing: restore FCC net neutrality rules and the agency's authority over ISPs, both stripped away by a hugely-controversial decision by the agency in late 2017. Tuesday morning, the Save the Internet Act passed through a key House committee vote and markup session -- despite some last-minute efforts by big telecom to weaken the bill.

"Net neutrality is coming back with a vengeance," said Evan Greer, deputy director of consumer group Fight for the Future said in a statement. "Politicians are slowly learning that they can't get away with shilling for big telecom anymore," Greer said. "We're harnessing the power of the Internet to save it, and any lawmaker who stands in our way will soon face the wrath of their constituents, who overwhelmingly want lawmakers to restore these basic protections." Greer told Motherboard that several last minute amendments were introduced by lawmakers during the markup period in an attempt to water down the bill, but all were pulled in the wake of widespread public interest in the hearing. "It seems like the GOP retreated a bit given after the huge swell of public support," said Greer, who told Motherboard that 300,000 people watched the organization's livestream of the markup process. That attention "really emboldened the Democrats and shored up the ones that were wobbling," Greer said.

190 comments

  1. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by PeopleAquarium · · Score: 1

    You seem to be proposing the novel idea that competition is possible in the current climate, or am I mistaken?

    You are aware that it's not legally permissible to actually compete with the current monopolists as things stand, right?

    The only difference with Net Neutrality is that the monopolists can't screw us on a per domain basis.

    The game is over, they won. The only question now is WHAT they won.

  2. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    There's 2 seperate problems here;

    The first is allowing content distribution companies aka publishers to also own and create content on a massive scale and in turn, dictate the discussion in a democracy. We know historically how disasterous it is to eliminate the ability of a body politic to discuss their differences and figure out how to manage the economic and political system; its the whole reason we have the freedom of speech.

    The second is a bigger issue with local pay 2 play franchising agreements; ISP's pay government, government grants monopolies, ISP's charge whatever they want. The fundemental engineering problem there is implimenting public wireway that anyone can pay the local government to use which is a difficult endeavour to solve because the realization is we need to seperate data as its own utility from other utility services' infrastructure. We used to have that when POTS networks were a thing; we've since replaced those POTS networks with Coaxial cable networks (still copper) and Cellular networks both of which present new engineering problems that the market has shown itself unable and unwilling to solve. States are attempting to retire their POTS cable and are finding out 911 emergency service goes away with it which is literally what keeps roving violent gangs from rampaging the countryside.

    Net Neutrality is one way of approaching the problem and a step in the right direction towards preserving a functioning economy and country. However until you begin breaking up media organizations and begin seperating publishers from content producers, you won't have a workable solution.

  3. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by wierd_w · · Score: 2

    I would further point out the issue with robocalls.

    Telecoms are quite capable of clamping this down with an iron fist, but don't. There's overwhelming demand for that clampdown to happen, but --- somehow --- the telecoms just won't self-regulate like GP insists is possible.

    It's almost like the proposed methodology just does not work in the real world or something.... /s

  4. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Mr307 · · Score: 1

    The average person blathering on about 'BUT MUH BANDWIDTH!' has no clue about the problems, its no wonder that various ISP want to be able to negotiate with the massive companies putting completely unrestricted traffic on their networks, now they are going to be hit with 4K game streaming on top of Youtube and Netflix and all the spam etc.

    I want some version of NN too but not the short sighted heavy handed restrictive version that was imposed previously.

    Its only the biggest companies putting massive traffic on the network that benefit from NN, not any users.

  5. Airways and Roadways by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seems pretty simple, it's not cargo laws because you can't check every vehicle and with infinite encryption as simple as it is you'd never know.

    What's the worry, plutonium? Measure the weight of the bullets, is the worry about making one person a star and then harming them? Then have the government investigate the star and if there's no problem, so what?

    Government would get paid for that, by taxes, that the businesses and individuals would have to pay.

    Why join them, well they pay more.

    Then banks and cash.

  6. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by wierd_w · · Score: 2

    There's no need for 4k streaming of anything, IMO.

    However, there *IS* a need for telecoms to stop hoarding their profits to make investors shit rainbows, and instead actually improve their networks. I wont hold my breath for that though.

  7. It'll die in the Senate by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    on the plus side this puts the Republicans on record as opposing Net Neutrality.

    And make no mistake, this is a partisan issue. The last time it came up for a vote it was split completely along party lines (IIRC one or two Repubs broke ranks, but not enough).

    What this means is that if you want NN, you have to vote for a Democrat, or at least an Independent. And they have to win both chambers and probably the presidency to.

    OTOH, I'm pretty sure it's a minor issue for even a lot of the folks on this forum; and whatever the GOP is selling outweighs the value of NN.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:It'll die in the Senate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They'll just say NN makes Jesus cry and their base will eat it up as usual.

    2. Re:It'll die in the Senate by slack_justyb · · Score: 1

      Democrats blew the best opportunity we've ever had to get constructive NN passed.

      Let me just stop you right there and let you know that there's a lot of Republicans who are fine with letting NN die a horrible death if that means their person gets another term to "protect the babies". I live in the deep south and on a list of top 50 things folks are concerned about, NN ranks about 246,789,122nd place. The moment people became so focused on single topic issues, was the moment voting records started to mean nothing. So literally Republicans are zero percent phased by this going on the record because their voters don't care. To them there are way more important topics to focus on. You either have to convince people that NN actually matters (good luck) or you need to get them unstuck from voting for a party for a single particular reason (yeah, better odds with the lotto).

    3. Re:It'll die in the Senate by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      Let me just stop you right there and let you know that there's a lot of Republicans who are fine with letting NN die a horrible death if that means their person gets another term to "protect the babies". I live in the deep south and on a list of top 50 things folks are concerned about, NN ranks about 246,789,122nd place.

      I'm not so sure anymore. Everyone is online these days. When you start talking about screwing with peoples Internets or raising price of said Internets as we have seen with FCC comments, Wikipedia campaigns, Facebook hearings..etc.. people end up caring and in significant numbers.

      Internet policy from what I've seen is an issue politicians talk about and spend time on for the short time they spend any time giving a fuck about any policy in the first place. It isn't top of any list by any means yet like most things it doesn't rank until you fuck with it or there is credible fear of it being fucked with.

    4. Re:It'll die in the Senate by fafalone · · Score: 2

      Did you forget where you're posting? Don't come here with your bald faced lie that the FCC NN regs prohibited QoS. Your contention that Republicans aren't "really" opposed is also severely undermined by the support of Republicans for faux NN laws that allow paid prioritization, missing the whole point, an anticompetitive tactic by an oligarchy. That support also undermines your ridiculous claim the Trump FTC would pursue it in absence of a law.
      You are disingenous, posting an outright lie followed by extraordinarily misleading arguments. And shame on the upmodders who also don't recognize that bullshit for what it is.

    5. Re:It'll die in the Senate by cmdr_klarg · · Score: 1

      It'll die in the Senate. On the plus side this puts the Republicans on record as opposing Net Neutrality.

      The Republicans aren't "opposed to Network Neutrality". They're opposed to using a broken fix that will break things further.

      OK, fine. Why didn't they fix it then?

      I'll tell you why: their corporate masters don't want it fixed.

      --
      THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
    6. Re:It'll die in the Senate by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      This shouldn't be a partisan issue, but it does points out how both parties are firmly behind the stance of "we're opposed to whatever they are for" as the only plank in their platform. The moderates who used to be able to see across the aisle are an endangered species.

    7. Re: It'll die in the Senate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This x100000.

      The repubtards think they can slip one past us. This isn't Fox News. We are informed over here.

    8. Re:It'll die in the Senate by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

      Don't come here with your bald faced lie that the FCC NN regs prohibited QoS

      QoS off the QoS field bits doesn't work - because the backbone routers don't pay attention to them. The routers don't pay attention to them because, in the early days, Microsoft "improved" their IP stack's performance by lying about the QoS required.

      So the router companies did QoS by deep packet inspection and applying software rules to what they found. And the same chips that enable doing GOOD with those rulesets also enable doing BAD with them. (And don't YOU come hear with YOUR bald face and try to tell us otherwise - because I DESIGNED some of those chips.)

      The problem is not whether the FCC NN rules prohibited QoS - by either definition. The problem is that the tools enable anticompetitive behavior by the ISPs and FCC doesn't have either the right mindset or the right mandate to do the necessary regulation. But the FTC does. They live and breathe it. Their power lies in doing it.

      Sheep dogs can be good. But for some problems you need an attack dog.

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  8. You're a fucking moron huxster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're a fucking moron huxster

  9. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    :-) Okay, wasn't that good, but +1 mildly amusing, I guess..

  10. Net neutrality and colocation by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 2

    I have a general net neutrality question.

    Consider that 1000 of my local ISP's customers want to watch a hot new Netflix show. My ISP is 1000 km from the nearest Netflix data center. The dumb solution is that 1000 customers sent requests to ISP who sends them 1000 km to Netflix who sends the show 1000 times over the backbone connection. The smart solution is that Netflix colocates a server in my ISP's small local data center which they send the popular shows to just once over the backbone, and this server sends it to the 1000 local customers.

    For the smart solution to happen, there have to be incentives for Netflix and the ISP to do it. Without net neutrality, it could work: ISP gets to advertise that Netflix is 0 rated (or 0.5 rated or whatever) towards customer data caps, and benefits from being more attractive to customers and not paying for so much backbone data. Netflix benefits by not needing so much internet backbone. Customers benefit obviously, at least in the short term. (Customers may suffer in the long term through lack of competition.) Would-be Netflix competitors are very unhappy. Possibly money changes hands between ISP and Netflix to make this work, although I'm not sure in which direction.

    With net neutrality, the ISP can't offer reduced rating on Netflix data. How do the incentives work in this case? The great reduction of data going over the backbone should provide savings, but who was paying this cost in the first place? Does the ISP want to pay Netflix to colocate a server, or to charge them for it?

    --
    Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
    1. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by whoever57 · · Score: 4, Informative

      If we are going to talk about Netflix, they already offer (or used to offer) your proposed solution. Many ISPs generally refused to accept these boxes because it undercut their arguments about getting Netflix to pay them.

      https://openconnect.netflix.co...

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    2. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 2

      I have a straw man to burn.

      FTFY.

      My ISP is 1000 km from the nearest Netflix data center.

      There is literally no where on the planet that Netflix is offered where they have relay servers that far away.

      For the smart solution to happen, there have to be incentives for Netflix and the ISP to do it.

      Yes, if they want to be functional and responsive to requests, Netflix will need to not do what you propose in you burning strawman argument. Your ISP doesn't have to do anything at all.

      Without net neutrality, it could work:

      Yeah, we've seen how it works without net neutrality. It's pretty simple, they prevent you from doing business until they get a cut.

      Your approach to the issue is naive to say the least because you think companies are trying to provide services in exchange for money. The truth is companies are trying to maximize profits and doesn't give a shit about their customers, so long as they keep paying money. Don't believe me? Just look at how many complaints Comcast has against it, how many times it's abused it's market position and how many settlements it's made to avoid taking responsibility for it's own actions.

      No matter how much you want to believe something, it will not change reality.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    3. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by sjames · · Score: 4, Informative

      Both Netflix AND the ISP save tons of upstream bandwidth.

      Or, without neutrality, ISP throttles the hell out of Netflix and zero rates CrapeeStreaming (a wholly owned subsidiary) and gives their customers the middle finger suggesting they go back to dial-up if they don't like it.

    4. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 1

      The smart solution is that Netflix colocates a server in my ISP's small local data center which they send the popular shows to just once over the backbone, and this server sends it to the 1000 local customers.

      ...

      For the smart solution to happen, there have to be incentives for Netflix and the ISP to do it.

      This is a leap. Since when is this the smart solution? It's more efficient, yes, but that doesn't make it smart.

      The seemingly inefficient way of doing it encourages the ISPs to up their game, build out more infrastructure to handle the loads.

      Your smart solution just seems to encourage paid promotion of one streaming service over another, and that's bad.

      And if you're concerned about price increases.. well, news flash, what they build or don't build has NO BEARING on the price they keep jacking it up by every year.

    5. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by WaffleMonster · · Score: 2

      Consider that 1000 of my local ISP's customers want to watch a hot new Netflix show. My ISP is 1000 km from the nearest Netflix data center. The dumb solution is that 1000 customers sent requests to ISP who sends them 1000 km to Netflix who sends the show 1000 times over the backbone connection.

      As time moves on I'm less and less convinced of this. Sounds quite reasonable and certainly makes sense in certain situations. Yet generally
      given cost of bandwidth especially for those with easy hotel access at some point it's cheaper to be stupid and have dumb as bricks specialized hardware forwarding a lot more packets than to spend money on installing, operating and maintaining intelligence.

      Possibly money changes hands between ISP and Netflix to make this work, although I'm not sure in which direction.

      With net neutrality, the ISP can't offer reduced rating on Netflix data. How do the incentives work in this case? The great reduction of data going over the backbone should provide savings, but who was paying this cost in the first place? Does the ISP want to pay Netflix to colocate a server, or to charge them for it?

      With CDNs like Akamai people I've talked to described it as a trade. Basically you give power and rack space and get a nice reduction of bandwidth in return. This was many years ago in relatively small shops.

      With net neutrality, the ISP can't offer reduced rating on Netflix data. How do the incentives work in this case? The great reduction of data going over the backbone should provide savings, but who was paying this cost in the first place?

      Personally I don't even support these arguments. It sounds good superficially yet for many last mile bandwidth is usually a much larger issue contrasted with cost of transit.

      My personal view is any benefit to the ISP in optimizing traffic within their network can go into reducing operating costs and as such still provide useful incentives for service providers to innovate without allowing these types of carve outs that evil monopolies will drive trucks thru.

      In many ways what makes the Internet work is lack of metering. The idea as a user I don't have to pay any more to send a packet across the street than I do to send one across the planet is what made the Internet what it is. Fancy rating schemes that carve exceptions for lower cost packets are in my opinion ultimately harmful and unnecessary pretty much across the board.

    6. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 1

      I'm in favour of net neutrality. Your vitriol is misdirected. I just want to know how incentives work in various systems.

      --
      Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
    7. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is what the "content delivery networks" like Akamai did. I built hardware back then, and *designed* boxes for this, back in 2001. They all learned the hard way, especilaly during the dotbomb, that you can't make money this way for streaming content. Some idiot *always* shows up, undercuts everyone by a few percent with some micro-change of technology, and siphons the profit out of the market until they collapse. Then the industry proceeds to transfer the next round of venture capital funding out of the investors and into the pockets of the amazingly fraudulent "Make Money on the Information $uperhighway" evangelists.

      I'm seeing a resurgence of the dotcom businesses right now, as the managers who learned the lessions in 2000 retire. I figure this dotcom bobble will last maybe five years.

    8. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 1

      OK, substitute 'efficient' for 'smart'. I agree that is a better word.

      If regulations favours inefficient solutions over efficient ones, this is not great. It might well be a price we're willing to pay (e.g. companies spending lots of money on advertising to get market share in a fixed sized market is inefficient), but it at least suggests there might be a problem with the regulations which could be fixed.

      My non-net-neutrality solution was not put forward as 'smart' (efficient), just as a way in which non-net-neutrality might cause the efficient solution to come about. (I.e. I care that colocation happens, not that the commercial arrangements that make it happen are organized in any particular way.) I concede that it is not the only way in which things might go without net neutrality.

      The point remains: under the right circumstances, colocation is the efficient solution. Implementing the solution produces a surplus, which can be shared in some way between the participants. This is all true with or without net neutrality. What incentives are there to implement the efficient solution, and how does the surplus get divided, with or without net neutrality?

      --
      Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
    9. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 1

      Thanks for a well thought out response, as opposed to those who take me for an evil anti-net-neutrality shill. (As stated in another response, I am pro net neutrality.)

      To see if I understand correctly, I shall try to summarize. The colocation benefits are small and possibly non-existent. Designing regulations to encourage colocation is likely to have adverse effects (on competition) that outweigh the benefits. So enforce net neutrality, and let colocation fall where it may.

      Is this about right?

      I like the trade you describe for Akemai. It is mutual benefit without either side trying to squeeze maximum money from the other. One problem I see is that in the simple case you describe, Akemai has no incentive to use power efficient hardware. There are a variety of ways minor tweaks to the agreement could deal with this, which for simplicity or because you are not privy to them, you have omitted.

      --
      Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
    10. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by oic0 · · Score: 1

      The ISPs should be the ones courting Netflix to put servers in their data centers as a selling point to bring in new customers and to reduce costs for the ISP. That's what would happen if there were real competition, but there isn't.

    11. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I work for a small ISP and we support NN. For us, we want to sign up for a Netflix caching server. We just dont have quite enough bandwidth to qualify for it. You need roughtly 5Gb of Netflix traffic and we are at around 4Gb. A caching server would help us in not having to pay for as much bandwidth or transport costs. Same with Netflix, they wouldnt have as much bandwidth cost. We could peer with them and save money that way but the closet peering location to us is located 500+ miles away and transport that far is expensive.

      Also, we dont believe in data caps and simply dont have them. There are ISPs in the US that dont charge or support data caps. Our bandwidth is fully symmetrical also.

    12. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's like you don't even know that Bittorrent (and similar) exist. If you have 1k people trying to stream the same feed, why not seed 15-30 seconds of it to subsequent requestors and let them stream to each other? It really wouldn't be that complicated. Also, why does anyone have to have a data cap? I can sort-of understand mobile data caps, but for landlines?

      The ISP does not need content servers for Netflix to do business. The "dumb" solution works just fine.

    13. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Khyber · · Score: 1

      "There is literally no where on the planet that Netflix is offered where they have relay servers that far away."

      Central Northern Russia, northern China, etc..

      Yes, I looked.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    14. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 2

      The point remains: under the right circumstances, colocation is the efficient solution. Implementing the solution produces a surplus, which can be shared in some way between the participants.

      The problem here is that you have failed to consider that improving the service and efficiency of Netflix (and other services) erodes their own cable broadcast model and thus their market position. If it were possible for a startup to provide internet connectivity and suffer no consequence for not having their own cable broadcast agreements then significant inroads could be made from every part of the country to dislodge their monopoly positions.

      Bandwidth is cheap and market share is expensive. Do the math because this isn't rocket science.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    15. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by imse · · Score: 1

      Larger scale networks typically already include various caching mechanisms for often requested and popular content, at least at the ISP level and often even further out towards the network edge. The 1000's of users watching the latest GOT release, wouldn't each stream it directly and independently from the remote HBO servers, but rather from a cache much closer to them, likely set up by their ISP to shorten latency and reduce traffic loads.

    16. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Brew+Bird · · Score: 1

      data caps are the result of capacity and planning analysis. it' straightforward math. It's also the end result of about 100 years of telecom experience with managing shared resources in order to keep end user costs down, while still providing everyone service. If X people have access to a network link of Y size, the sum total of what they can all transfer is Z (where Z is some amazingly ridiculous number that is much much larger than Y), you can do a statistical analysis of every user and see that for every user that consumes more than their 'fair' share of Z, you have 10 or 20 or 50 who are no where close to using their fair share. As long as you set the expectation that there is a penalty for going too far over that limit, EVERYONE on the system always has great performance, because the total transfer amount for everyone together is below Y for the month. Or to put it simply, the neighborhood never overloaded their uplink. The difference between BT and commercial content distribution systems is... one is designed to be open and replicate data. the other is designed to service an application while also controlling who has access to the content, and ensure the content OWNER that their stuff isn't being randomly ripped off. Putting it physically close to the end users (setting up a streamer in the cable company office), just cuts down on both the bandwidth bill for your streaming service as well as for the cable operator. It's a win for everyone, because the service works even better than having to run through links that are potentially overly congested with other traffic...

    17. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Brew+Bird · · Score: 1

      Both Netflix AND the ISP save tons of upstream bandwidth.

      Or, without neutrality, ISP throttles the hell out of Netflix and zero rates CrapeeStreaming (a wholly owned subsidiary) and gives their customers the middle finger suggesting they go back to dial-up if they don't like it.

      Actually, zero rating is specifically permitted in the net neutrality regs. And folks forget, the reason comcast was throttling netflix was because they were overloading a public gig-e link in order to get to part of the comcast network. netflix didn't have a direct peerage agreement with comcast back then, nor did their ISP. (which is how ISPs get paid for sinking traffic, BTW). the bottom line is, that model has worked well since day 1. It only appears unfair if you don't understand that it does, in fact, cost money to carry someone's traffic, and the 'no cost' peering arrangements are predicated on the idea that the traffic flow is fairly even. pretty much every peering contract I've ever seen sets forth penalties and fees if your traffic starts going too much in one direction or the other, because at that point, one is using the link as a transit connection, which requires payment. Only folks who don't understand this seem to think that comcast was 'out to get' netflix.

    18. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Guess what.

      If Comcast had allowed NetFlix caching servers it its datacenters the pressure on the peering points would have been less, not more. But Comcast wanted the peering points to be overloaded so they could extract money from Netflix to carry the traffic the Comcast customers request, that's right the Comcast customer requested the traffic from NetFlix and Comcast has a paid for contract to deliver that traffic via best effort. Best effort would include caching servers if appropriate NOT artificially overloading the peering points. Why should Comcast be able to charge its residential customers for the delivery of network packets and then charge the content provider, who only provides content the Comcast customer requests, for the delivery of the same packets?

      Oh yeah, Comcast also refused to increase the capacity at the peering points even when NetFlix offered to pay for the upgrade.

    19. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The dumb solution is that 1000 customers sent requests to ISP who sends them 1000 km to Netflix who sends the show 1000 times over the backbone connection. The smart solution is that Netflix colocates a server in my ISP's small local data center which they send the popular shows to just once over the backbone, and this server sends it to the 1000 local customers.

      Actually, the smart solution is that the ISP runs some generic caching proxy (e.g. squid) on $2000 worth of hardware, and the Netflix client's (as well as competing services' clients') requests go through that. But Netflix would have to upgrade to http before this can actually work.

    20. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or, the ISP says,
      'Ah yea, we don't provide Netflix any more, we don't have to.
      There are no rules that require us to do so.
      However, if you want to watch the latest superhero movie, we have a streaming service...
      Or or Comcast says,
      "Oh you want CBS Access? Yea, we only provide NBC/Universal shows. We look at the Internet as another Cable Channel."

    21. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      Actually, zero rating is specifically permitted in the net neutrality regs. And folks forget, the reason comcast was throttling netflix was because they were overloading a public gig-e link in order to get to part of the comcast network.

      The Netflix drama originally started with Netflix dropping normal bandwidth / CDN services people who need to distribute data at scale normally call upon and instead took it in-house.

      As you can imagine this pissed off a lot of ISPs who saw bandwidth from Netflix going to plaid as result of cost cutting measure undertaken by Netflix.

      Eventually over time Comcast started pushing back with TE policy that unnecessarily disadvantaged Netflix with side effects well beyond just Netflix.

      This lead to the now infamous Netflix chart:
      https://www.statista.com/chart...

      netflix didn't have a direct peerage agreement with comcast back then, nor did their ISP. (which is how ISPs get paid for sinking traffic, BTW). the bottom line is, that model has worked well since day 1. It only appears unfair if you don't understand that it does, in fact, cost money to carry someone's traffic, and the 'no cost' peering arrangements are predicated on the idea that the traffic flow is fairly even. pretty much every peering contract I've ever seen sets forth penalties and fees if your traffic starts going too much in one direction or the other, because at that point, one is using the link as a transit connection, which requires payment. Only folks who don't understand this seem to think that comcast was 'out to get' netflix.

      By this standard Comcast should be paying Netflix because Comcast was receiving way more data from Netflix than was transmitted in the other direction.

      The reality is they were out to get Netflix and only because of the sheer size of Comcast did it seem like good business strategy to even attempt to leverage captive Comcast eyeballs.

      Under the same condition smaller shops would be happy for cheap incoming.

      Beyond a certain limit companies increasingly seek to leverage their positions and things go to shit as a result.

    22. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by sjames · · Score: 1

      In other words, you really drank the cool aid on the double dipping situation.

      Mutual transit agreements are rightly predicated on a reasonable balance of traffic. It does indeed cost money to provide transit ( Allowing traffic from ISP A bound for ISP C to transit your network) and so free transit agreements need to be reciprocal.

      Peering is an entirely different case. That's where traffic from ISP A bound for customers of ISP B is routed through a direct connection from A's router to B's router without 3rd party transit. It makes no ethical sense for peering connections to be metered in any way. After all, these are packets an already paying customer wants delivered as part of their already paid for service. If they don't route it to it's destination, they're already breaking a contract with a customer.In other words, ISPs get paid for sinking traffic by the customer that the traffic is bound for.

      Going to the specific case of Comcast accepting traffic from Netflix, every packet handed to Comcast that originated from Netflix happens because aone of Comcast's paying customers requested it (as is their right by virtue of having paid Comcast a monthly service fee). Comcast already agreed to carry that packet, and is getting paid to do so by their residential customer. Any attempt to get Netflix or their ISP to pay for that packet as well is double dipping.

      The traffic on that "everloaded gig-e link" was traffic that paying Comcast customers requested (because they wanted to watch Netflix). Comcast was actually providing crappy and sub-standard service to their paying customers by not doing anything about that overloaded link. Netflix kindly offered to provide Comcast with a caching server that would have reduced that traffic by orders of magnitude in exchange for a few U of rack space and a few KWh of power. It was a pretty good offer and a clear win all around. Comcast turned them down cold and countered with fuck you, pay me. Netflix said "no thanks, enjoy your transit bills" as was their right.

      Had there been proper competition from a healthy market, none of this would have come up. If Comcast used an overloaded connection as a throttle, Comcast's Netflix watching customers would have switched to a competing ISP and Comcast would be kindly invited to pound sand. If we had decent consumer protection laws, Comcast would have been ordered to either deliver the traffic their customers already paid them for or start refunding money and paying fines.

      The whole situation is best visualized as a group of people in business suits standing knee deep in a flow of cash fighting over a penny until it stretches into copper wire.

    23. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Shaitan · · Score: 1

      "By this standard Comcast should be paying Netflix because Comcast was receiving way more data from Netflix than was transmitted in the other direction."

      You have this backwards.The penalties are because carrying traffic costs money, if Comcast is receiving way more data from Netflix, Comcast has to pay for more equipment to transit that hence Netflix gets the penalty.

    24. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 1

      We've been down this road already. We know where it leads.

      It leads to exclusivity contracts. Ie: Netflix will colo with an ISP to ease the burden, if the ISP agrees not to colo anyone else's services.

      You just know that's what's going to happen. No one wins but the big corps raking in the cash and creating artificial shortages.

      I am HUGE on efficiency, myself, I don't like we have to organize this in an inefficient way, but the only way it's going to be fair is if no one can colo.

      Net Neutrality is part of what makes this all fair and level. Without NN, you can bet colo contracts are being signed, along with the exclusivity attached to that. And taking from another poster's reply, most of these big ISP's are also in the content business, a direct conflict with entities like Netflix, whom are directly competing with the content division of an ISP. No business I know of is interested in assisting their competitors.

      With NN cooling it's heels in a back closet, you can bet your panties, ISPs and content providers are scrambling to set up all sorts of non-neutral contracts and business arrangements, to make it that much harder for NN to come back out of the closet.

      No one wins but the big corps in this scenario. We will all pay more, get less and get it slower and at lower quality.

    25. Re: Net neutrality and colocation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are clueless and a troll. You know nothing about any of this. So you come to slashdot and ask a question that's been answered 10000 times already.

      Then when called out, you say, but but but I'm for net neutrality. Waffle comes along telling lies about NN(the repubtard tactic) and you reply with "you sound like a reasonable person".

      Fuck off you troll.

    26. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      Many ISPs generally refused to accept these boxes because it undercut their arguments about getting Netflix to pay them.

      Well, it seems you think that the ISP should offer free colo service to Netflix, eating the cost of site maintenance and power. Of course Netflix should pay for a colo site since they're the ones profiting from the customers paying them, and they're using consumables that actually do cost money.

      Sans a colo, a thousand Netflix customers all streaming the same hot new show creates congestion at the border gateways, which is not a violation of NN. It's also not a violation of the advertised speeds, since "up to" means "up to" not "always". It's also pretty stupid to think that an advertised speed means the ISP must always provide data to you at that speed -- the ISP cannot control the data coming from non-ISP sources. Here's a free example. If your ISP says "100Mbps" for you, will you complain to them that my RPi web server cannot provide 100Mbps data to you? Yes?

      As for what this proves about Republican's support for NN, sorry, no. That's a standard partisan political trick: write a bill that does something the wrong way, or does the wrong thing to solve a problem, wait for the opponent to oppose it, and then claim that they don't want whatever the alleged benefit would be. It can't be that the means don't justify the ends, no no, or that the alleged solution just wouldn't be one.

      I think it is just fine for one party to oppose virtue signaling by the other. I also think it is fine for one party to oppose a "law" that says that a regulatory agency must put back rules they removed and cannot ever ever change them. If the regulatory agency has regulatory authority to do X, then they have authority to do X. If they don't, then congress telling them to do X anyway is the wrong solution.

    27. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Australia...

    28. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If Comcast needs more servers to serve the contracts they signed up to serve, then they should be making them, not demanding that the reason why people want their service should pay them. Comcast in Canada had to provide evidence of their congestion in court. Turns out they were only bandwidth limited 3% of the time. Is Comcast USA less competent than Comcast Canda? Or just able to fleece people in the USA easier because of spineless morons like yourself arguing for them?

    29. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by whoever57 · · Score: 1

      What a load of utter bullcrap.

      Site maintenance and power? Trivial amounts of money. It's a 2U appliance. How about the ISP pays Netflix for their reduced cost of peering?

      Republicans? I did not mention Republicans or any political parties. Perhaps you should pull your head out of whatever orifice it is in, while searching for a way to deflect criticism of what is obviously your chosen party. Criticism that you are obviously very sensitive about, because I did not write it.

      I did not write many of the things you appear to be attempting to refute. Your posting is almost entirely a strawman argument.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    30. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      Site maintenance and power? Trivial amounts of money. It's a 2U appliance.

      Power and air conditioning are not free. A 2U "appliance" doesn't hold much data. It's still takes space. TANSTAAFL.

      Republicans? I did not mention Republicans or any political parties.

      I didn't say you did. I was covering an additional topic.

      I did not write many of the things you appear to be attempting to refute.

      I didn't say you did. Please take a chill pill and let other people talk about things you aren't interested in, ok?

    31. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by whoever57 · · Score: 1

      Do you know how much it costs to collocate a 2U system in a datacenter? $400/month buys you a whole cabinet (42U) in a datacenter in California. As for the amount of data: go read the articles about Netflix's system.

      What about my point that the ISP is saving a lot of money on peering costs? You can't talk about one cost while ignoring the other.

      As for taking a chill pill -- you are the one who desperately needs it.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    32. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      What about my point that the ISP is saving a lot of money on peering costs?

      What about your guesses? They're saving money they aren't necessarily going to spend anyway to upgrade a border gateway. How nice.

      As for taking a chill pill -- you are the one who desperately needs it.

      Yeah. Sure. When you stop stressing about my responses to other people (for example, the very first comment at the beginning of this discussion) you can lecture me about calming down.

    33. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      You have this backwards.The penalties are because carrying traffic costs money, if Comcast is receiving way more data from Netflix, Comcast has to pay for more equipment to transit that hence Netflix gets the penalty.

      I've heard this argument many times yet still cringe whenever it is invoked. The concept you are conveying makes no logical sense and has no parallels to anything in the real world.

      What you are saying is no different than a grocery store attempting to charge farmers for providing more fruit to them because more people want to buy apples and it costs grocery store more to hire staff to run checkout counters and stock apples. Therefore farmers have to pay!!

      On what planet does this make any sense to anyone? Only the Wal-Mart's of the world would even think to leverage their massive market position to impose these kinds of terms on those providing what store's own customers are requesting.

      In the real world middlemen buy from suppliers, apply a mark up and sell to buyers. Operating costs are passed on to buyers which keep the middleman in business. Any difficulties or costs incurred scaling to meet demand are the middleman's problem not customers or suppliers.

      Keep in mind Comcast's own CUSTOMERS are explicitly REQUESTING this data. Netflix was facilitating the provision of data Comcast's own paying customers wanted in the first place. Normal ISPs without countless millions of sub and a national footprint would be happy for cheap incoming.

  11. Too profitable for them to leave robocalls running by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The fix to this is relatively simple, although it might require a lot of backend changes if they have truly neglected things as badly as we have been lead to believe.

    Simple put you need either a signature chain from the originating telco hub, or a blockchain/series of blockchains providing a chain of authentication for every call dialed with a signature from each originating hub signing both the previous phone call and the next.

    Either of these solutions would lead you back to the 'bad telco' and the blockchain may even lead you back to the bad actor themselves, since the blockchain would act as a log and authority for all outgoing dialled calls, meaning even if the caller id itself was faked there would be an irrefutable record of the robocalls being transmitted back to back from the same node, location, or unsecured hub, allowing both discovery of that location as well as providing a difficult to contest record of the crimes when someone is identified to prosecute.

    While I don't know what would be required for proprietary solutions, this could be written up for asterisk in a few weeks and should be able to handle normal call load per switch, hub, or bx without a significant increase in load (since this is only adding a per-node key and a signing pass per connection, at most a few hundreds of a second extra during the initial connection phase.)

    I bet if these robocalls go away we will see a 50 percent or greater decline in phone division revenues for all the major telcos in the US.

  12. How sad. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

    Why would you think such blatant disinformation would succeed here? Do you really think so little of people?

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  13. Exactly by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It'll die in the Senate, on the plus side this puts the Republicans on record as opposing Net Neutrality.

    Exactly... and that's the point.

    they have to win both chambers and probably the presidency to.

    2020 is coming along with another blue wave.

    OTOH, I'm pretty sure it's a minor issue for even a lot of the folks on this forum; and whatever the GOP is selling outweighs the value of NN.

    Fear, hate and tax cuts for the rich is what they are selling. However, they changed the intensity from being subliminal and liminal to being superliminal which has had diminishing returns.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:Exactly by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      this puts the Republicans on record as opposing Net Neutrality.

      Exactly... and that's the point.

      What point? If politicians were judged on their voting records, reelection rates would be 20% or less, instead of the present day 95%

      2020 is coming along with another blue wave.

      LOL! Yeah, followed in 2021 by another disappointment like in 2009, 1993...

      *sigh* the wishful thing never ends. The same mistakes will be repeated, and different results are to be expected, again...

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    2. Re:Exactly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Historically speaking, it's highly unlikely the Democrats will take the Presidency or Senate in 2020. Two-term presidents almost always lose Congress in their first mid-term (Obama, Reagan, Clinton).

      Of course, I'm a moderate. I'd exchange Net Neutrality for building a wall/tighter immigration controls.

    3. Re:Exactly by Kokuyo · · Score: 1

      Yeah, hussah for 2020 where you poor sons of bitches get to decided between "positive racist/sexist" corporate bought politicians and corporate bought Republicans, whom any sane person cannot stomach any better.

    4. Re:Exactly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At this rate, I doubt the telcos would give any side a fair shot at some sort of NN. At least the wall would be over and done with and then there could maybe be more policy discussions... maybe?

    5. Re:Exactly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only in your Clinton wet dreams.

    6. Re:Exactly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Their "tax cut for the rich" saved me, a below-median-income person, a ton of money. The problem with the tax cut is that the part for the non-rich expires, while the one for the rich does not. In addition, "the rich" in California and NY got screwed by the limit on deduction of state taxes. Democrats in those states didn't like it one bit that THEIR rich didn't make out as well as the rich in lower tax states.

      As for NN, if you're a one-issue voter, you will find yourself very unhappy in the end. For example, are you willing to support NN candidates who are willing to allow unlimited H1-B visas for tech workers who will replace you in your job?

    7. Re:Exactly by tbannist · · Score: 2

      What point? If politicians were judged on their voting records, reelection rates would be 20% or less, instead of the present day 95%

      For congressional districts, that's mostly the effect of gerrymandering and partisanship. However, an interesting effect of gerrymandering is that the side benefiting from the gerrymandering is vulnerable to opinion changes. If fewer people support that party than expected in an election they can lose everything, the party harmed by the gerrymandering, on the other hand, can swamp districts that have been cracked if general opinion changes, and they really can't lose districts that have been packed. It's all about risk management and if the risk calculations are wrong, it can all go disastrously for the would-be victors.

      2020 is coming along with another blue wave.

      LOL! Yeah, followed in 2021 by another disappointment like in 2009, 1993...

      *sigh* the wishful thing never ends. The same mistakes will be repeated, and different results are to be expected, again...

      On the other hand, merely disappointing would be a distinct upgrade from the horrifying shit show the Republicans are currently putting on.

      --
      Fanatically anti-fanatical
    8. Re:Exactly by fustakrakich · · Score: 0

      It's the disappointment and the democrat charade of faux "liberalism" that set the stage for today's "horrifying shit show", which before, always went on behind closed doors. The republicans came in and washed the lipstick off the pig.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    9. Re: Exactly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I swear repubtards are the most delusional group of humans I have ever seen.

      Holy fuck you guys r dense. Someone brings up valid points and you immediately go into defensive repubtard fallacy mode. Blame the liberals!!!!

    10. Re: Exactly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      " I'd exchange Net Neutrality for building a wall/tighter immigration controls"

      You sound like a scared little bitch. You aren't a moderate, you are a repubtard scared of brown people. Admit it snowflake. Dey took our jerbzzzz!!! That's what you sound like.

    11. Re: Exactly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's funny, everything I've read says the middle class paid more in taxes this year than ever before.

      But somehow you made out. I think you are lying. We don't believe you you need more people.

    12. Re: Exactly by fustakrakich · · Score: 0

      oh dear! he thinks I'm a republican! You so funny! Try reading the post, without your silly tribal partisan blinders this time!

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    13. Re: Exactly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not even an American, so have no tribal partisan blinders , I struggle to tell your parties apart at all, but I think you are a Republican (btw not the OP)

    14. Re: Exactly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Struggle no more, they are the same, designed to share power amongst friends, it's obvious and goes without mentioning. And if you actually think I'm a republican, or support either of them, then you really are funny!

    15. Re: Exactly by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      shit! That was me. Forgot to turn off the AC

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    16. Re: Exactly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck you goddamn troll ass moderators! Bunch of asshole democrats! You people WANT Trump to win again!

    17. Re:Exactly by GWXerog · · Score: 1

      2020 is coming along with another blue wave.

      The last "Blue Wave" could have been more aptly described as a light mist. Unless they Democratic Party fixes their schism(s) and dumps the identity politics it's going to split in two and take everything down with it

  14. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by WaffleMonster · · Score: 2

    Welcome back to your copper insulated wireline that 100% NN ready and federally approved.
     

    Yep pretty much. They could have written a clean NN bill that addresses competition.

    What they elected to do instead was continue POTS era Title II bullshit with an insane number of administrative forbearances that can be dissolved at any time by the whim of technocrats.

    Everyone who is cheerleading for this bill enjoy regressive Internet USF taxes coming to an account statement near you.

    Democrats blew the best opportunity we've ever had to get constructive NN passed.

  15. Re:Too profitable for them to leave robocalls runn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, you ain't seen yet nothing boy! (or girl sorry for that evident sexist part).

    Now, for anyone who cares about higher challenges, just try to restore creimer's neutrality!

    CROFLOL!

  16. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by js290 · · Score: 1

    From a purely technical standpoint, resource neutrality is undesirable. The market solution to Net Neutrality is to have more ISP competition. Honestly, I would go back to slow and reliable DSL if AT&T didn't keep raising the price. Someone other provider should be able to come in and offer old school DSL for $20/month. Cable isn't as reliable, but it's faster and cheaper. And, I think they just got around to laying fiber for my neighborhood, but it's probably a single provider.

    --
    "Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
  17. democracy by Sooner+Boomer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What this means is that if you want NN, you have to vote for a Democrat, or at least an Independent. And they have to win both chambers and probably the presidency to.

    Or, you could, you know, engage your representative and senator (R/D/wutevr), and express your point of view in a clear, reasoned manner. Believe it or not, they do listen to your calls and read your letters/emails (at least someone on their staff does. There is a populist movement on both sides of the aisle and the incumbents better pay attention to it, or they will be looking for a new job.

    --
    Chaos maximizes locally around me.
    1. Re:democracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I only ever get form letters repeating the party talking points. They don't care unless you send it with a brown paper bag full of cash.

    2. Re: democracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have never written and never gotten a letter back.

    3. Re:democracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are some cases where this is true. However, the senators from my state are Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul. There is zero possibility that my, or even hundreds of thousands of voter's, dissenting opinion would matter at all to them on this issue.

    4. Re:democracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are good arguments for and against NN and you'll find both within the Dem party.

      Realistically, there will never be NN when the GOP is in charge. They've ceded their leadership to cable news and a personality cult. Whoever is in charge has decided regulatory capture is good and their tool to achieve that is the tool that is Pai.

      In a way, Pai is emblematic of GOP leadership - Or rather, their lack thereof. He can't even articulate the valid arguments against NN and pretty much does whatever the telecom industry wants. He's just shit at his job, and the people that put him there know that.

      Under Pai there will be no meaningful progress on NN (Or rather a compromise that should allow carriers to optimize networks while making sure they don't price gouge customers or force bundle products they don't want cable-industry-style). There will be no meaningful progress on robocalling or anything else that gives carriers inconvenience. There will be no meaningful progress on increasing high speed internet availability to all Americans.

      Under the GOP, you get Pai. And they don't care what you think about it.

    5. Re:democracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Emails have less weight (electron)

      Typed or hand-written & mailed letters have more weight (proton)

      fax also has more weight than email.

    6. Re:democracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The tax cut bill pretty decisively showed that the vast majority of R's only care about their (very) wealthy donors. They'll make up lies to the keep the poors in their camp.

    7. Re:democracy by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      I don't think they listen anymore. Their only concern is being reelected and that means kowtowing to the party faithful so that they make it through the primaries.

    8. Re:democracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indeed. I wrote my congressman requesting he vote a certain way on a certain issue, and I got back a missive telling me in no uncertain terms that I was wrong. Not a reasoned explanation of why my representative disagreed, nor an unemotional presentation of an alternative view. Nope, just a (and I quote) "Let's get one thing straight here..." followed by a broadside against my position.

      I thought his job was to *represent* me in Congress. Silly me - his job obviously is to berate me. Oh, yeah, and get reelected. What a jerk.

    9. Re:democracy by ItsJustAPseudonym · · Score: 1

      Or, you could, you know, engage your representative and senator (R/D/wutevr), and express your point of view in a clear, reasoned manner. Believe it or not, they do listen to your calls and read your letters/emails (at least someone on their staff does. There is a populist movement on both sides of the aisle and the incumbents better pay attention to it, or they will be looking for a new job.

      You are apparently unaware of a state named 'Texas'.

  18. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Welcome back to your copper insulated wireline that 100% NN ready and federally approved.

    Network neutrality says nothing about the underlying tech.

    Welcome back to your one federal NN approved monopoly telco.

    No more new competition. No new community broadband. No network innovation allowed.

    Federal rules and laws protecting monopoly networks all the way down to the modem.

    Once again, network neutrality says nothing about the underlying tech. If corporations wish to be evil and unhelpful state and local government can bid out the work and get the job done. If the big telco's don't want to build the infrastructure if they can't screw everyone over then fuck em. Last I checked government infrastructure did work, and I know things like medicare and medicaid are amazingly efficient are far as actual operating costs.

    Nothing new for your gated community. Nothing better for your gentrified neighborhood.

    Want community broadband? The exisiting NN approved network is the only network allowed.

    Federal laws and rules slowing your internet since 2019?

    Restoring slow gov approved networks all over the USA. No more new network freedom.

    Not one part of your post was true.

  19. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Then bill on a curve.

    Oh wait, they like billing grandma $80/mo to check her email.

    Seriously though, bill us for downloading shit all day, the same content repeatedly, bring it on. The streamfags will stop treating the pipe like it's unlimited, in turn the "massive companies" will be averse to always-online nothing-local SAS bullshit that suddenly becomes unpopular for being omniconnected data-is-infinite cloud crap.

  20. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by slack_justyb · · Score: 1

    Democrats blew the best opportunity we've ever had to get constructive NN passed.

    Oh sweetheart, it's been a concerted effort on both sides. Democrats understand that a clean rewrite would suck resources their staffer can't provide and lobbyist won't pay for. Republicans ensured that independent consultation won't happen this lifetime. And do you think the FCC is willing to testify in commitee on this topic honestly? So unless come 2020 we elect bona fide IT folk into Congress (and I highly don't recommend that), a clean rewrite won't happen.

    New legislation doesn't happen on timescales of less than a decade without some sort of outside of Congress input that's paid to specialize within the topic's domain. So we sure can do it the committee way and have something fresh and new to replace dated Title II, oh by 2028-ish. However, critters in Congress have reelections that happen on shorter than that timescales. So, I guess we're stuck for the time being with shit Title II or nothing. But let's not forget that Congress has acted in a unified matter to increase the level of nothingness they do on a daily basis.

  21. Nobody IRL cares about NN by mveloso · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Nobody in real life cares about what people call Net Neutrality.

    In reality, NN is about corporations trying to force other corporations to pay for infrastructure and access. Everything else is just a sideshow, and it's pathetic how so-called geeks have gotten suckered into taking sides in this fight.

    NN isn't about the consumer, it's about who pays.

    1. Re:Nobody IRL cares about NN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ^this exactly... It's really a fight between corporations. Though I'm still for Net Neutrality.

    2. Re:Nobody IRL cares about NN by WaffleMonster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      NN isn't about the consumer, it's about who pays.

      This is an oxymoron. The consumer ultimately is footing the bill for everything one way or another.

    3. Re:Nobody IRL cares about NN by Freischutz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nobody in real life cares about what people call Net Neutrality.

      In reality, NN is about corporations trying to force other corporations to pay for infrastructure and access. Everything else is just a sideshow, and it's pathetic how so-called geeks have gotten suckered into taking sides in this fight.

      NN isn't about the consumer, it's about who pays.

      Believe you me, people in real life care about the inflated bill for crappy internet service from their local telecommunications monopoly and they are pissed off about the crappy service so they care about what people call Net Neutrality even if they might call the lack of it price gouging and crappy service.

    4. Re:Nobody IRL cares about NN by vadim_t · · Score: 4, Insightful

      NN is about removing extortion.

      Netflix pays their ISP for their connection, I pay mine for mine. That's all there has to be. There's no reason for my ISP to care about Netflix, because whatever are the costs of my usage of Netflix should be covered by the money I pay.

    5. Re:Nobody IRL cares about NN by Cajun+Hell · · Score: 1

      it's about who pays

      So you're saying it's about the consumer?

      --
      "Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
    6. Re:Nobody IRL cares about NN by Shaitan · · Score: 1

      In this case they want the content to provider to pay AND the consumer to pay. It's like rinse and repeat. But it won't stop there. The biggest worries about net neutrality are subtle things you can't easily prove are even happening if you even know they are happening at all.

    7. Re:Nobody IRL cares about NN by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      Believe you me, people in real life care about the inflated bill for crappy internet service

      And NN as enacted by the FCC rules that the Dems want put back has nothing at all to do with prices or price controls.

      You want full-time, dedicated gigabit service instead of a network that you share with others upstream from you, then prepare to pay for it. Once you start sharing, you need to understand you are sharing a limited resource, just like telecom planning has resulted in since Mr. Bell called his assistant to come help.

  22. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by ls671 · · Score: 2

    Telecoms are quite capable of clamping this down with an iron fist, but don't. There's overwhelming demand for that clampdown to happen, but --- somehow --- the telecoms just won't self-regulate like GP insists is possible.

    I suspect that you don't have much experience in telecoms. CallerID need to be settable by the calling end. This has been explained on Slashdot many times so your argument is weak. Just do your own research on why this need to be and you will easily find.

    What we would really need is some kind of tracebility/digital signature of the calling end spoofing the CallerID.

    Unfortunately, I am not aware of such provision in SIP or other protocols right now although somebody might already be working on this.

    If nobody is currently working on this, why don't you volunteer?

    Cheers,

    --
    Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
  23. AJIT2020 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In many ways, I see him as a hero. Most of all, he stands up to bullying. Secondly, he's doing the right thing. NN is not the FCC's job.

  24. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Welcome back to your copper insulated wireline that 100% NN ready and federally approved.

    Welcome back to your one federal NN approved monopoly telco.

    No more new competition. No new community broadband. No network innovation allowed.

    Federal rules and laws protecting monopoly networks all the way down to the modem.

    Nothing new for your gated community. Nothing better for your gentrified neighborhood.

    Want community broadband? The exisiting NN approved network is the only network allowed.

    Federal laws and rules slowing your internet since 2019?

    Restoring slow gov approved networks all over the USA. No more new network freedom.

    Welcome back to your copper insulated wireline that 100% NN ready and federally approved.
    Welcome back to your one federal NN approved monopoly telco.
    No more new competition. No new community broadband. No network innovation allowed.
    Federal rules and laws protecting monopoly networks all the way down to the modem.

    You really don't have the first clue about what the Net Neutrality rules did and did not do prior to December 14, 2017, do you? All this new bill does is reverse the Ajit Pai FCC fuckery from December, 2017 and sets it back to the way it was before that. Do you recall the Internet being slow before 2017? Do you really believe there was no network innovation before December 2017?

    Federal laws and rules slowing your internet since 2019?

    You really are a stupid sonofabitch, you know that?

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  25. Swirling down the toilet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The bill to "restore" net neutrality moves forward toward the toilet for a final flush.

  26. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

    Network neutrality says nothing about the underlying tech.

    This should be true but isn't. The vehicle democrats are using to impose it (Title II) sure has a heck of a lot to say about a whole lot of unrelated things.

    If the big telco's don't want to build the infrastructure if they can't screw everyone over then fuck em.

    The problem is government regulation is actively being used to reinforce large monopolies. Examples include spectrum policy favoring large providers and pole attachment rights.

  27. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

    Democrats blew the best opportunity we've ever had to get constructive NN passed.

    The probability of this bill passing the senate and being signed into law by Donald Trump is precisely 0%.

    It is a political stunt for the sole purpose of framing the issue for the 2020 election.

    The actual content of the bill is completely irrelevant.

  28. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by shilly · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The market solution to insufficient competition is, in theory, more competition. When there's not enough competition, we have a market failure, and regulators should step in, in this case with Net Neutrality.

  29. One word: by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

    Consider that 1000 of my local ISP's customers want to watch a hot new Netflix show. My ISP is 1000 km from the nearest Netflix data center. The dumb solution is that 1000 customers sent requests to ISP who sends them 1000 km to Netflix who sends the show 1000 times over the backbone connection.

    One word: Multicast.

    It's already in the Internet suite.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    1. Re:One word: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Implicit in the original argument is that those 1000 customers send requests for different Netflix shows at different times. Multicast is not a solution for that.

    2. Re:One word: by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      One word: Multicast.

      And when one sub wants to pause the stream so he can go refill the popcorn bowl, do all the other subs also get their streams paused?

      No, sorry, multicast is not the solution, even if it is just one word.

  30. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    How many more decades of federal gov monopoly NN wireline speeds will that "regulators should step in" support?
    When a telco monopoly uses federal NN rules to keep out new innovative networks?
    Open the networks up to new ISP. Let a community create its own community broadband free from federal rules and laws.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  31. Re: Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've got an app. This app blacklists phone numbers that people give it to verify they are unwanted calls. It stops robocalls cold.

    In the US, one of the lesser advanced countries with regards to cellular infrastructure advancements, calls are becoming increasingly routed over non cellular infrastructure using VoIP. Not only is it possible to screen calls to eliminate robo calls, it's possible to blacklist in near real time.

  32. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    Re AC and the "Once again, network neutrality says nothing about the underlying tech."

    Will every community in the US be free to build their own community broadband an invite in on innovative and fast ISP?
    Will only the existing monopoly wireline be able to prove to the US gov that it is NN ready ISP and is the only regulated ISP allowed to connect?
    AC federal NN rules are what keep new networks and new innovative service out of communities all around the USA.
    Time for some community broadband with new trenches and community fiber-optic.
    Connect when needed and all is ready in the community. Not more wireline and modem speeds set and protected under decades of federal rules and laws AC.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  33. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Aighearach · · Score: 1

    Shitting rainbows is fun. Nobody is going to pass up an opportunity to shit rainbows. Not even to save the world, or "restore" net neutrality or something something.

  34. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Aighearach · · Score: 1

    In my State everybody has pole attachment rights. If I buy a house in the mountains, and I want to run a private fiber run, it costs something like $30k/mile. But none of that is for attachment rights, it is only to have the work done by a licensed contractor.

    Don't let companies own the poles. That is as stupid as letting companies own streets.

  35. can't get away with shilling for big telecom by FudRucker · · Score: 1, Insightful

    i cant wait until they figure out they cant get away with shilling for the military-industrial complex and the banking cartel

    this is just plain old crony-fascism when the government offers their services to the highest bidder

    --
    Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
  36. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They 'won' only because, through sheer force of throwing money at it, they rigged the game in their favor. Last I checked, that was called 'cheating', not fucking 'winning'.

  37. Re: Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by ls671 · · Score: 2

    You are correct indeed, that's what I do too with some variation and I seldom get robocalls, say 1 a month on average and that's from direct lines that don't have to go through an IVR before ringing whichever device are close to me.

    I don't use any apps although, I control this at the voip switch and most of my cell/copper line calls are routed through it in some way.

    --
    Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
  38. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Welcome back? What changed? Your inner WindBourne is showing again.

  39. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My landline telephone has quite a neat solution to robocalls. It has a whitelist for known numbers that go straight through and ring normally. Any other numbers get put through to a holding area, they're asked to state their name and the phone then rings and says "X is calling you, do you want to take the call?" and you can either take it, refuse it or refuse it and blacklist the number, so in future that number won't even get through to the holding area.

  40. Can't you blame this on Commies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    like the good old days?

  41. NN effects only video and audio streaming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The only groups in the USA effected by the lack of Net Neutrality are video and audio streaming companies. Companies, which use huge amounts of data. I will prefer a low speed internet, at a lower cost, and not subsidize some heavy Netflix user.

    1. Re:NN effects only video and audio streaming by Gilgaron · · Score: 2

      Yeah so you sign up for the lower tier service, what does that have to do with NN or subsidizing higher tier service?

    2. Re:NN effects only video and audio streaming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you really so naive to think that ISPs are going to stop charging additional access fees with Netflix and Spotify when Google, Facebook and Apple have much more money available to extort?

    3. Re:NN effects only video and audio streaming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I will prefer a low speed internet, at a lower cost.

      you should stick with a modem then over a POTS line.

    4. Re:NN effects only video and audio streaming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I will prefer a low speed internet, at a lower cost,.

      You should stick to a modem using a POTS line.

  42. Re: Too profitable for them to leave robocalls run by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    who?

    ROFFLYKOPTERZ!

  43. Re: Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    cheating, winning, these are just words, both produce the same result. more money. THATS the goal.

  44. Re:Too profitable for them to leave robocalls runn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    GPs is implying it's possible, just that there is no incentive.

  45. Re: Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How does that work when Robocalls spoof their number? Wouldn't you end up possibly blacklisting a legitimate number?

  46. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Swervin · · Score: 1

    The answer you are looking for is SHAKEN/STIR, it's currently being implemented by major carriers.

  47. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by shentino · · Score: 2

    The regulators have been taken hostage by lobbyists who successfully hijack state law to ban local competition.

    One case where the feds *should* invoke interstate commerce to protect competition.

  48. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    its no wonder that various ISP want to be able to negotiate with the massive companies putting completely unrestricted traffic on their networks

    As far as I am aware, there is nothing restricting Comcast from negotiating with Netflix's ISP.

    Oh wait, you're trying to argue that Comcast should get to double-dip and bill both myself and Netflix even though they are not Netflix's ISP? In that case, fuck off.

  49. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Merk42 · · Score: 1

    Republicans:
    We can't trust the Government to control X effectively for the people. The power should be with the Businesses!

    Democrats:
    We can't trust the Businesses to control X effectively for the people. The power should be with the Government!

  50. Net Neutrality Effects by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We haven't had "Net Neutrality" in quite a while.
    But my internet access is better and faster than ever!

    So much for the NN Ninnies.

    1. Re:Net Neutrality Effects by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you have proof it affected no one else?

    2. Re:Net Neutrality Effects by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What about you?

  51. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Khyber · · Score: 1

    "There's no need for 4k streaming of anything, IMO."

    High-def microscopic research done remotely?

    I mean, I was doing that a DECADE ago.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  52. Re: Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So basically you want to steal from the pension funds that own the utilities. Got it.

  53. Save the Internet? by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 1

    Last month, Democrats introduced a simple three page bill that would do one thing: restore FCC net neutrality rules and the agency's authority over ISPs, both stripped away by a hugely-controversial decision by the agency in late 2017. Tuesday morning, the Save the Internet Act passed through a key House committee vote and markup session -- despite some last-minute efforts by big telecom to weaken the bill.

    Serious questions. What has been the overall impact since late 2017 when the FCC removed the rules? Are websites now inaccessible that once were accessible? Have upload & download speeds been reduced? Have costs skyrocketed? Is there any noticeable change that anyone can point to?

    --
    Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
  54. Governmental responsibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A long time ago, the rural South had a small problem. No electricity. The government actually solved the problem with a little business/ government program called the TVA. Could the same type of system be used to string fiber? Yes. Did it cost some people their homes and livelihoods? Yes. Did the costs outweigh the benefit? No. Does this have anything to do with NN? Maybe. With broadband access, charge the usage fee based on proportional size, with stiff penalties, up to corporate death penalty, for "cybersquatting", blocking access. The backbone belongs to a semigovernmental agency run by a board of governors, none of whom can have ANY relationship, no matter how small, with the outside corporate interests.

    Just a proposal.

  55. Great French Revolution is coming! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We need a new Directory to defeat American Telecom Monarchies and establish trade, free of feudal taxes of Telecom Landlords!

  56. The ignorance is staggering... by Brew+Bird · · Score: 1

    Having seen what the 'open for all' internet looks like, before the ability of telecom/ISP companies to effectively manage the impact of bad actors, the idea that people, in their ignorance, actually believe such nonsense as 'every packet is equal' is disturbing. This version of 'net neutrality' does not protect end users. read the thing. read ALL of it. For every headline in the regs that says 'protect end user privilege', there are 8-30 exceptions that essentially allow an ISP/Telco to do exactly what people claim they do not want to allow them to do. Don't want to be charged 'extra' for access to netflix? No problem, says FCC/ISP: You now have a bandwidth cap per month, and once you go over it, we charge you extra... unless you use our streaming service, which is zero rated (I.E. doesn't count against your bandwidth cap). The entire regulatory framework is filled with that kind of crap. And the best part? the FCC declares itself as the sole arbiter of anything going wrong online... So before, where you could go to the FTC (which has all the experience shutting down protectionist, monopolistic behaviour), the FCC now gets to determine if google or verizon doing something that is expressly allowed by it's regs (but is clearly a violation of anti-trust laws) is legal! WAKE UP PEOPLE. Stop thinking with your hearts and read the crap being shown to you as 'the protection you need from your evil ISP'.

  57. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All corporations should be strictly regulated by the government.

  58. go find the memo from comcast by bussdriver · · Score: 1

    Comcast said they would hold off any big new plans after they killed neutrality. It is a wise move because the suckers will feel safe and think all the fear mongering was a bunch of hype. Then slowly little by little the ISPs turn up the heat and you'll ignore the complains by the haters as we all slowly come to a boil.

  59. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by neurojab · · Score: 1

    I don't think that real competition is realistic in the ISP space. Why can't you choose your water provider? There is only one set of pipes entering your home. The situation with ISPs isn't quite that extreme, but it is an example of the same problem - there is expensive infrastructure that needs to be plumbed to every home and that naturally limits the number of competitors that can play. Therefore the "free market" cannot solve the problem on its own. If you only have one option for your ISP, without net neutrality there is nothing stopping your local ISP that serves your home from say, only serving news from CNN (or FOX), or blocking youtube. They can do whatever they want because you have no other option.

  60. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by neurojab · · Score: 1

    Its only the biggest companies putting massive traffic on the network that benefit from NN, not any users.

    Um.. are you saying that when a user requests a youtube stream, that youtube is putting massive traffic over the network and not the user? The user benefits from the youtube stream, do they not?

  61. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by js290 · · Score: 1

    I don't think that real competition is realistic in the ISP space. Why can't you choose your water provider? There is only one set of pipes entering your home. The situation with ISPs isn't quite that extreme, but it is an example of the same problem - there is expensive infrastructure that needs to be plumbed to every home and that naturally limits the number of competitors that can play. Therefore the "free market" cannot solve the problem on its own. If you only have one option for your ISP, without net neutrality there is nothing stopping your local ISP that serves your home from say, only serving news from CNN (or FOX), or blocking youtube. They can do whatever they want because you have no other option.

    Actually, in rural areas, people still use wells for their water supply. In some suburban areas, it's possible to use different natural gas suppliers. And, some people choose to disconnect and live off of the grid. As it relates to ISPs, I think what most residential customers do not realize is how crappy residential service is compared to commercial ISP offerings. The physical wiring that goes to residential are essentially the same as commercial, but the contractual offerings for commercial are far superior in terms of guaranteed throughput. No "up to NNN Mbps speeds..."

    --
    "Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
  62. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm honestly surprised that EFF doesn't try to write this one and engage in lobby-ism for it.

    It would seem to meet their stated goals.

  63. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by js290 · · Score: 1

    The market solution to insufficient competition is, in theory, more competition. When there's not enough competition, we have a market failure, and regulators should step in, in this case with Net Neutrality.

    Q: How much govt does it take to ruin a free market? A: any amount.

    --
    "Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
  64. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by js290 · · Score: 1

    The regulators have been taken hostage by lobbyists who successfully hijack state law to ban local competition.

    One case where the feds *should* invoke interstate commerce to protect competition.

    Precisely, somehow I doubt the people benefiting from the system are somehow going to lose out with "more regulations." Taleb's "Bob Rubin trade" http://bit.ly/2N3xxaz

    --
    "Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
  65. Finally, the apocalypse is over. by FlamingGuts · · Score: 1

    These past two years have been ROUGH without net neutrality. With all the... uhh...

    Well when the telecom providers did the... uhhh.... the bad things.... with..

    MORE GOVERNMENT CONTROL IS ALWAYS BETTER!




    (This message brought to you by NN advocates and general government propaganda)

    1. Re:Finally, the apocalypse is over. by Shaitan · · Score: 1

      "Well when the telecom providers did the... uhhh.... the bad things.... with.."

      There has been a ton of rate limiting and throttling, data collection, double charging for bandwidth. But nowhere near what it will be if they actually win the fight. Right now they are just dipping their toes in the water.

      The most scary thing about not having net neutrality is that the worst things they can do will be transparent or otherwise appear normal. Especially if they are at all clever.

      Your Playstation Vue, Hulu, Netflix, etc starts pausing and hiccuping randomly because they apply random throttles that target random regions and not everywhere all at once. Start it very light and slowly increase over the course of six months. Everything else is fine, the internet seems fast, must be that Vue is letting their service degrade. You switch a couple more times, they all have periodic issues. Oh these streaming services must all be second rate. I guess I'll switch back to cable I rarely ever had problems there! Or since the carriers have their own competing streaming services you'll switch to that and get the impression that "straight from the source is the way to go, they have the best networks and not these second rate third parties."

      That is a perfect example of what commercial fuckery without Net Neutrality looks like. But they can do worse than that, the technology is well established (in large part thanks to China) to dynamically alter content on the fly when you request it. So maybe your Slashdot never shows any stories about net neutrality anymore.or worse shows everything on the topic altered with strawman arguments so that over the course of a few years you are gently guided to independently reach the conclusions the ISP wants you to reach. You know how you would know? Especially if the major carriers colluded in the same way they have always traditionally done. You wouldn't.

  66. Re: Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Take a look at SHAKEN/STIR. Caller Id verification is solved, just a matter of telcos implementing, which it seems a few are working on

  67. Multicast by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We've had a solution to this since the shit was invented, it's called UDP Multicast .. not sure why some form of this isn't being exploited for streaming.

  68. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The actual content of the bill is completely irrelevant.

    Except in so far as it was kept to a straightforward bill that will never get to be voted on in the Senate (thanks Mitch).

  69. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by tbannist · · Score: 1

    Yes, that's exactly what he's saying.

    No, it doesn't make any sense, and no he will never realize exactly how idiotic his rantings are.

    --
    Fanatically anti-fanatical
  70. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From a purely technical standpoint, mixing different protocols and use cases over the same media is a recipe for resource contention and that will literally get tens of thousands of people killed a year because fundamental engineering science has not been done.

    Do you mix the use case of an emergency services infrastructure network with video streaming?

    Does video streaming need to have 99.999% Up time and need to be invulnerable to radio jammers and foreign government interference? Does it need 10mbps throughput? Now mix in e-mail, e-commerce, job hunting, and all the other activities that go on with the internet. Is 64-color DSCP becomes adequate? Are we band-aiding all sorts of protocols like SIP and SMTP to make them do what they were never intended to do? How many implementations are there and how many of them actually do what the datasheet says they do? Who certifies them and who builds the standards?

    How do you manage those mixed requirements? The current government and market are making the grifters argument; they haven't quantified the costs, if they did it's be public knowledge so their argument is its good enough all while not involving the public or any data science in the discussion. When data science is involved, it's quickly buried in a flurry of blackmail and political games in order to discourage the public.

    Know who did do the engineering? The people who designed the original telephone and telegraph systems. They designed it so you could dedicate a separate copper wire for your fire alarm system vs your main phone lines. They didn't do it on paper, they figured it'd be common sense. Then Ma Bell came around with the "We don't care, we don't have to" slogan and made changes. Today? Wind-stream declares bankruptcy and I get an snail mail message with literally 203 companies on it that are going down with them.

    You realize the fundamental engineering problem is you need to dedicate public wire-way and you need to break up the media oligopoly we have in the US. I'm talking we install separate posts in the ground, trenches, bury cable under the road and so forth for data. Huge infrastructure investment but it needs to be done if you want the savings, and there will be huge savings.

    Fail to do that, other countries will invent the technology and culture of tomorrow then promptly screw us with it just like we've done to them.

  71. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by shilly · · Score: 2

    The answer to "the regulator is toothless" is not "remove the regulator". It's "give the regulator teeth". Similarly, the answer to "the regulator has been captured by providers" is "don't allow this to happen". See also: FAA & Boeing.

  72. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by shilly · · Score: 1

    Yeah, but no. We had free markets in the UK in the 1800s and we got potato famines, adulteration of food beverages and medicines, grotesque industrial injuries, kids being sent up chimneys, etc etc.

    I'd focus on masturbating to the idea of free markets, because they're a fantasy that seem to turn you on. In real life, you can carry on living in a country that uses regulations to ensure your buildings don't fall over, your kids' toys aren't stuffed silly with cheap nasty chemicals that'll kill them, a gallon in a gas station is actually a gallon, and endlessly on. I suppose you can try to set up your own free state where none of this is true, but the odds of it being a success that doesn't look like Somalia seem pretty low to me. Happy to be proved wrong though!

  73. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by js290 · · Score: 1

    Yeah, but no. We had free markets in the UK in the 1800s and we got potato famines, adulteration of food beverages and medicines, grotesque industrial injuries, kids being sent up chimneys, etc etc.

    I'd focus on masturbating to the idea of free markets, because they're a fantasy that seem to turn you on. In real life, you can carry on living in a country that uses regulations to ensure your buildings don't fall over, your kids' toys aren't stuffed silly with cheap nasty chemicals that'll kill them, a gallon in a gas station is actually a gallon, and endlessly on. I suppose you can try to set up your own free state where none of this is true, but the odds of it being a success that doesn't look like Somalia seem pretty low to me. Happy to be proved wrong though!

    Hammurabi solved the collapsing building problem thousands of years ago... Underwriters Laboratories, Consumer Reports, Snell Foundation, etc etc are not govt agencies... you do realize that the effect of govt regulation is to limit liabilities, not actually to protect consumers?

    --
    "Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
  74. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I do though, and you're exactly right.

    What's that? I'm an engineer for a nationwide telecom company.

  75. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by js290 · · Score: 1

    I'd focus on masturbating to the idea of free markets, because they're a fantasy that seem to turn you on.

    Also, you seem to be turned on by the govt regulatory utopia we're currently in... advocating for more of it and all... lol

    --
    "Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
  76. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 1

    Ah yes... Parliament passes the Corn Laws, overtaxing grain imports so that corn and bread become prohibitively expensive, so people rely on eating potatoes instead, then a potato blight hits and the suddenly the over-reliance on potatoes is the "free market" in action and the government tariffs which created the situation are to be ignored.

    The problem is that you're ignorant to the negative side effects of what really happens when people try to control vast swaths of the economy, not the least of which is regulatory capture where the most powerful companies being regulated end up over time influencing the regulations to mostly hurt any new competition from being started against them, which is mostly how we got in the current situation in the first place.

    But sure, it's always more regulation is needed to fix the bad effects of the previous rounds of regulations and this time it'll be different. Have you actually read the NN rules? They're not exactly a statement of NN principles.

    --
    The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
  77. Yay! by Shaitan · · Score: 1

    First I am a huge fan of the idea of three page bills. Hopefully they assert actual net neutrality and not Obama era rules.

    1. Re:Yay! by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      First I am a huge fan of the idea of three page bills. Hopefully they assert actual net neutrality and not Obama era rules.

      You do realize that this bill is a "three page bill" that instructs FCC to reinstate their entire set of rules that were in place before and they can't ever change them. I didn't count, but I bet it's a lot more than three pages. It makes no changes at all to the previous FCC NN rules, so if you didn't like them this three page bill won't help. And if technology changes in the next few years, these NN rules cannot change to follow.

  78. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You do realize that those liabilities you speak of are through the government, not separate from it?

  79. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by desdinova+216 · · Score: 1

    the EFF probably doesn't have the money it would take to overcome the opposition

  80. Re: Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You guys are so fucking delusional.

  81. Re: Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You were streaming 4K videos a decade ago?

  82. Re: Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Isn't one of the jobs of government to control businesses and make sure they are fair to consumers?

  83. Oh bullpussy! You're lying. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bullpussy! You didn't save a dime. Let's see some numbers. You didn't get to write off your SALT, you didn't get to write off your home mortgage, your tax withheld from your check may have been $40 less per week but you had to make it back up at tax-return time. What part of the non-rich tax cuts are you referring to?

  84. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by shilly · · Score: 1

    You really do know fuck all about history, don't you?

    The causes of the Famine included: the unchecked power of landlords over their tenants; the consequential splitting of tenant landholdings into ever small parcels, such that ultimately only potatoes could be farmed (Irish farmers at this time were subsistence famers, they could not afford to buy their main source of calories, because they were impoverished, not because of the price of grain); and the dominance of the potato as a staple crop (and especially the Irish Lumper), significantly driven by the use of better pasture land to grow beef for the English market (those unchecked landlords again).

    Notoriously, the Famine's impact was made dramatically worse by the Whig government's laissez-faire conviction that the market would provide the food required. You really do have to be all kinds of stupid to review the history of the Famine and conclude that the main problem was government action, as opposed to inaction.

    Naturally, you go on to prove this to be the case, by tendentiously explaining the concept of regulatory capture, and then assuming that because regulation is necessarily imperfect (what with being a human endeavour and all), it is never a good idea, a particularly risible argument when you consider how it might apply to capitalism, free markets, etc.

  85. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by shilly · · Score: 1

    Hammurabi? Are you fucking kidding me?! Hammurabi created a *law*! with a *sanction*! That is regulation, you muppet! As the ruler of the country -- you know, the government -- he wrote a law that said builders whose buildings collapse and kill someone should themselves be killed. You should be *outraged* at Hammurabi interfering in the free market in that way, not parading it as though it's an example of the free market in action.

    Jesus fucking Christ, you people try to be so clever and then you say such stupid stupid things.

  86. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

    You seem to be proposing the novel idea that competition is possible in the current climate, or am I mistaken?

    Not only is it possible, it is happening. You have to let go of the idea that the "cable company" is the only possible source of Internet service to notice it, however.

    You are aware that it's not legally permissible to actually compete with the current monopolists as things stand, right?

    Yes I am aware that this lie is floating around out there.

  87. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by js290 · · Score: 1

    Hammurabi? Are you fucking kidding me?! Hammurabi created a *law*! with a *sanction*! That is regulation, you muppet! As the ruler of the country -- you know, the government -- he wrote a law that said builders whose buildings collapse and kill someone should themselves be killed. You should be *outraged* at Hammurabi interfering in the free market in that way, not parading it as though it's an example of the free market in action.

    Jesus fucking Christ, you people try to be so clever and then you say such stupid stupid things.

    Saying "stupid stupid things"... free markets are not free of ethics... https://freekeene.com/2007/12/...

    --
    "Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
  88. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

    ISP's pay government, government grants monopolies,

    Not in the US. It is against federal law for any cable communications company to be granted an exclusive franchise. Then the issue becomes that you don't have to be a cable communications company to be an ISP, and no ISP EVER has been granted an exclusive franchise.

    States are attempting to retire their POTS cable and are finding out 911 emergency service goes away with it

    Really? I can call 911 from my cell phone just fine. They even get my GPS coordinates when I do. Where is 911 going?

    and begin seperating publishers from content producers,

    Uhhh, huh? So if I write a book I should not be able to publish it and sell it myself? Freedom of speech, much?

  89. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

    "There's no need for 4k streaming of anything, IMO." High-def microscopic research done remotely?

    You've fallen for the typical argument tactic of someone telling you what "you don't need". Doesn't matter what what's-his-name thinks you or I need. Nobody died and left him in charge of what we need.

  90. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    Re "Why can't you choose your water provider?"
    Water is not simple trenching and installing well understood fiber tech for community broadband.
    People in any community can find smart people to do trenching. The place some new ducts and get with installing fiber.
    Ask a people on private land if they wish to connect to a community network?
    Get told yes and more trenching on private land.
    the service is connected and ready for use.
    Get told no and that property does not get a new service connected.
    the duct is in place. The working fiber waits.
    Drop in any number of ISP from all over the USA.
    Just like any monopoly telco that should keep up with advancements in network tech.
    No federal laws and NN rules needed.
    Make a network, connect as requested. Enjoy ISP freedom. Network speed and not having to wait years longer for a NN approved federal monopoly network.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  91. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Get told no and that property does not get a new service connected.
    the duct is in place.
    Now you don't have a network anymore. If only you had some federal laws or the government just provided the trenches in their streets...

  92. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by shilly · · Score: 1

    Instead of talking about new strawmen as a distraction, it would be better if you simply acknowledged that you cited an example of a government using deadly force as a regulatory sanction as evidence of how free markets can operate successfully without regulation. If you can't be honest with me, at least be honest with yourself.

  93. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by dcw3 · · Score: 1

    That's great, and I generally agree, but you're not dealing in a free market in this case. When the vast majority of homes only have one cable provider, that's not a free market. The feds need to jump in whenever things are turning monopolistic, and we've lost sight of that ever since breaking up AT&T.

    --
    Just another day in Paradise
  94. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by dcw3 · · Score: 1

    And yet, you're still dealing with one ISP. That's not a free market.

    --
    Just another day in Paradise
  95. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by js290 · · Score: 1

    That's great, and I generally agree, but you're not dealing in a free market in this case. When the vast majority of homes only have one cable provider, that's not a free market. The feds need to jump in whenever things are turning monopolistic, and we've lost sight of that ever since breaking up AT&T.

    The feds created the monopoly. There's certainly no free markets with fiat money.

    --
    "Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
  96. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by js290 · · Score: 1

    And yet, you're still dealing with one ISP. That's not a free market.

    Are the regs you're advocating for going to cement their position or actually open up competition?

    --
    "Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
  97. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by js290 · · Score: 1

    Instead of talking about new strawmen as a distraction, it would be better if you simply acknowledged that you cited an example of a government using deadly force as a regulatory sanction as evidence of how free markets can operate successfully without regulation. If you can't be honest with me, at least be honest with yourself.

    Self fancied logicians are some of the dumbest people... I've been there. Good luck.

    --
    "Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
  98. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by dcw3 · · Score: 1

    Listen, I'm a small government conservative. But, in the case of monopolistic behavior, there's no option but to have government step in and either break up the monopoly, or find some other way to open up the market.

    --
    Just another day in Paradise
  99. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by shilly · · Score: 1

    So you're not going to admit you argued government regulation was bad by approvingly citing an example of government regulation?

    I mean this is hardly fancy logic. This is the same as someone arguing "trains are always shittier than cars. Here's an example of a train that's better than car". It's just idiocy.

  100. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by shentino · · Score: 1

    What this means is that they're in on it.

    For some reason the telecoms have an incentive to tolerate it, which means they're on the take.

  101. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by wierd_w · · Score: 1

    Your eyes lack the total number of photo receptors to accommodate 4k video. That is why you don't need it.

    The human eye has between 6 and 7 million cone cells in it. That number is divided into 3, because each cone cell is receptive to only a single notch of the light spectrum.

    This gives your eye a total "RGB" receptivity of about 2 million total "pixels".

    4k video streams 8,294,400 ACTUAL, Fully RGB pixels every frame.

    That is 4 times the resolution of your eyeball.

    If you were capturing the high res data for offline review later, that is fine, but you don't need to stream that. You stream what you are actively watching. Again, your eyes physically cannot accommodate that. Sending that over the wire is absurd. You dont need it.