You aren't making any sense. At all. Yes, data that a car obtains over the Internet comes from the Internet. Congratulations. You've just stated a tautolog that has no bearing on the original topic of discussion.
The original topic of discussion is the ability to create a paid fastlane for some companies FOR DATA CARRIED OVER THE INTERNET to AVs. Now that you finally admit that the data does, indeed, traverse the internet and not just the "last mile" wireless connection from some cell carrier to the car, maybe you realize that a fast lane for that data is ON THE INTERNET, which net neutrality laws would prohibit.
existing cellular networking is well beyond the point where making latency better is not worth the expense.
And now you're back at considering only the wireless cell carrier connection and not the entire path for the data. I had such high hopes that when you admitted that the data comes over the internet that you might look at the big picture, but sadly, no.
"The only data an AV can ever ever need is what it can get from other cars around it" is another such pronouncement.
You're the only one implying that any of us ever said that. What we said was that:
a car must be capable of driving safely without relying on the Internet. That's an indisputable fact.
You say I'm the one making that statement, and then you repeat it again yourself. You deny that there might be any data that can make the car operate more safely that it could get from the internet, and that's just poppycock.
Your "indisputable facts" are also indisputable opinion. You don't know for a fact that there will never be data that can improve the safety of operation available via the internet, you just assume it must be so because it is not so today. As I asked, do you still ride your horse to school, both ways, uphill, in the snow, because that was good enough for your grandfather and only the "heat death of the universe" could possible change those indisputable facts?
By contrast, the serious harm caused by paid prioritization is extremely obvious
If find "it's obvious" to be a particularly unconvincing argument, especially when it comes to the future.
from content providers that are not their customers
I think the point is that the data providers on the internet, using Comcast business ISP service to provide the data you cannot imagine existing ARE COMCAST CUSTOMERS. It's the AV getting the data that are not the customers, and they aren't paying extra.
If an ISP can extort money from content providers that are not their customers merely to prevent throttling traffic
Only zealots equate improved QoS for some data to deliberate throttling of other data.
You're like the guy who after being told that there's one in a million odds, says, "So you're saying there's a chance?"
No, I'm the guy who is saying that we do not know the future well enough to create laws to hobble it based on ignorance.
Vehicles with a human operator don't need remote controls.
Non sequitor. Who is talking about remote controls?
In the case of a human operator, it also doesn't need external inputs. Get over it.
What human can do much of anything without external inputs? Maybe you. You seem very good at it, but the product is not very good at all.
Controlling cars via the internet
Nobody is talking about controlling cars via the internet. Where did you get that shit from?
The safest car will be one that has zero internet control connections.
Because you cannot imagine that maybe someday there will be some data that can help the car make better decisions, you spout this proof by assertion. The safest car is the one that is parked in the garage; the second safest is the one that uses all useful data to make the best decisions and does not arbitrarily ignore "external data" (which it certainly DOES need) while carrying its human cargo.
In the days when a product didn't go out the door to be sold until it was tested, your point may have been valid. In modern production systems, every activity is testing, even routine use by consumers. Automotive recalls are just the tip of the iceberg in recognizing that; every product you buy is being tested by you and whether you call customer support to get it fixed or not are the test results.
Wow, you just keep proving how stupid you are. All cars driven by humans are autonomous, and don't need another vehicle to have driven the road before they do.
The irony of your posts is delicious. Now you seem to think that "autonomous" means "doesn't need another vehicle to have driven the road before". And you call someone else a moron.
That is perfectly doable without any internet connection whatsoever.
Perfectly? Really? There is no data from the internet that could be used to improve any decision an AV makes. Nothing could ever be developed that could improve things. Ever.
The safety aspect is avoiding collisions
Since you think that is the only aspect to safety, there is no common ground to discuss this on.
you want the autonomous cars to exhibit "flocking" behavior - as each one dynamically reacts to the driving environment, optimal solutions automatically emerge.
Oh my God. You WANT emergent behaviors from our AV in action. You don't want predictable, safe, consistent behaviour, you seek the new and unanticipated. On the public highways. "Flocking", you call it. There is a better term.
??? That question doesn't make sense. The cell company isn't originating anything.
So the data that it isn't originating comes from somewhere else, right? Like OVER THE INTERNET. Pulling teeth, but we finally got there.
It can't, because it isn't plausible for an autonomous car to need data that is simultaneously both time-critical and coming from something that isn't physically nearby
History is replete with people making grand pronouncements of what is good enough for the future. "All you need is a good ship and a few stars to sail her by." And now we have GPS. "GPS with selective availability is all anyone needs to keep track of where they are." And now SA is turned off and we can do so many more things.
"The only data an AV can ever ever need is what it can get from other cars around it" is another such pronouncement.
If a vehicle cannot make reasonable decisions without external data,
Straw man.
None of the data you're describing has anything to do with mitigating risks.
Of course it does. Knowing that there is a accident ahead allows for planning on how to get past it, instead of waiting to come upon it and having to make a quick decision. Planning that can include using a different main road without incurring a huge time penalty, instead of using a back road that still costs an hour and a half extra.
An autonomous vehicle must be able to be completely blinded to all data external to the vehicle and still be able to drive safely.
You must have some amazingly limited definition of "external data" to make that kind of statement. Almost as if you define "external data" to mean "any data the car doesn't need to make some decision, whether it is the safest course of action or not."
Any autonomous vehicle that can't do so simply should not be allowed on the roads,
I agree. That pretty much gets rid of all of them.
We have autonomous vehicles out there on the roads today, and exactly none of them benefit from prioritization, much less paid prioritization.
As I already pointed out, not many of them, and most of those are supervised by an engineer or two. But you are so firmly entrenched in what is being done today that you cannot imagine anything new that might come along when the numbers of AV increase. If it is good enough for today, it is good enough for always, right? Do you still ride a horse to school, both ways, uphill, in the snow?
And again, paid prioritization of traffic from one company's vehicles over another company's vehicles can never be beneficial, period.
It's the company providing the data, not the company manufacturing the car.
That's why all inter-car communication will always necessarily be either direct broadcast or mesh-based, not server-based.
Wouldn't it be interesting to figure out sometime in the not too distant future that not all data that an AV can use to make a trip safer will be stuff it gets from the car next to it, but might also come from a server somewhere on the internet?
even if we ignored the fact that it would be inherently inferior to a local mesh network,
Facts not in evidence. It's 2AM and you are the only car on the road. Where's your "inherently better mesh network"?
there would still be absolutely no sane reason for the FCC to allow a cellular company to charge money to the car company in exchange for getting the bits there faster.
1. For data products that we have today.
2. It wouldn't necessarily be a cellular company.
3. It wouldn't necessarily be a car company.
The cellular company should simply make the bits from all cars get there faster, non-preferentially, and slow down non-car traffic.
I have a cellular modem. How does the cell company know it isn't in a car? How does the cell company know it isn't data for the onboard entertainment system which isn't as important? And how is the cell company originating all this data, and not some company on the internet that is sending it to the car?
There's no reason to allow what is at that point a basic consumer need
How can data that isn't needed become a "basic consumer need"?
Also, a paid fast lane is a fast path from vehicles of a specific company to the Internet backbone.
It is a fast lane for a company, on the internet, for data relevant to AVs. Every connection from an AV to the internet goes someplace. "Vehicle to anywhere" has an anywhere to connect to. That "anywhere" is on the internet. Why is this so hard?
Nothing in net neutrality laws would prevent companies from building a fast path from all vehicles to the backbone,
If only the only important thing was getting to the backbone, and not to the data source or sink at the other end of the internet connection. If so, why do people complain so bitterly about congestion at border gateways? They've got their 50Mbps connection to the "backbone", what else is important? Oh, you mean actually getting data over that backbone, all the way from the source to the destination, is an issue?
The laws just say that A. the ISPs can't charge the car companies for giving priority to cars,
It also says that company B, that provides data used by AVs, cannot pay more to get their data prioritized to the AVs. That's the part you keep missing. Data from company B going to ALL and ANY AV is one company getting priority over others.
All traffic of a given type (e.g. vehicle navigation data, if you want to use that rather silly, highly latency-tolerant example) must get the same priority.
Yes, which will be the same as the data from Netflix or Google or.... Perhaps you can define how you know what this data (and only you are limiting it to "vehicle navigation data") is and that it is bound for an AV and not another system. Will AVs get allocated a specific address block? Oh, wait, that would be prioritization based on source or destination -- clearly not net neutral.
The fact is, this is new stuff. We don't have a history of AVs cluttering the highways yet. Those AVs that are out there are few, far between, and in many cases populated by engineers supervising the autonomous behavior. We don't know what kinds of data might be critical to have, yet. That's why we want to allow innovation. Saying "your data isn't more important than pix of Aunt Milly at the crocheting competition" is absurd.
Real-time refers to something in which microseconds matter,
"Real-time" has many meanings when used by humans. It doesn't always means "microseconds."
Besides, the first cars that come upon an accident usually don't have to slow down much anyway.
When a crash blocks the highway they better slow down ALOT and RIGHT NOW or else they're going to join the fun of an ambulance ride, or watching their cars get towed away. By law, the first cars are supposed to stop to provide assistance.
Most navigation systems just use a radio receiver and get broadcasts from the transit agencies based on fixed RADAR stations.
There were so many radar stations along that section of highway the candy bar in my pocket was just molten goo, for sure.
The vehicle must be able to drive safely without external data, or it is not autonomous.
That is so stupid that I know you must be trolling at this point. Autonomous does NOT mean "without external data". It means that it makes decisions about how to respond BASED ON EXTERNAL DATA instead of the human making those decisions.
The fact that it can do a better job of getting you there in a timely manner doesn't mean that it needs a high-priority channel.
It isn't a fact that it can do a better job, and I didn't say it NEEDS a high priority channel. Do you not understand what "is useful" means?
Thus, making a high-priority bidirectional channel available for getting information that can be just as easily obtained by adding a $25 traffic data receiver would be patently absurd.
Do you not understand what "example" means? As in, real-time traffic data is just one example what kinds of data would be useful? Wait, you think "useful" means "mandatory", so no, I don't doubt that "example" is also beyond you.
No, the sorts of tasks that benefit from prioritization are things like live audio and video streaming.
Those are two examples of data that humans use that would benefit from prioritization, but thinking that's the only data possible is basing a long-term decision on static thinking. We don't know all the kinds of data that AV might make use of because, first of all, YOU are adamant that the AV cannot use it (because if it did it wouldn't be autonomous) and second because they aren't common on the highways yet and we don't know what might be important.
And these things are readily identifiable by port numbers,
If you don't understand how the internet works, just say so. You don't need to demonstrate an ignorance of the ability to use any port number for any service to make that clear. Maybe you've never run an SSH server on a port other than 22, or FTP on anything other than 21, or a web server on anything other than 80, or UUCP on anything other than 540, but some of us do that kind of thing and we know how trivially easy it is.
QoS flags,
Ditto. Who sets the flags? The sender.
Remember, this is not about prioritization, but rather paid prioritization,
For a specific source, remember. Net neutrality, in the minds of the zealots, means NO differentiation, not that it is ok to slow their email or web browsing down because someone else has a video (or data that an AV can make good use of to mitigate risks) that needs higher priority. And YOU don't even admit that there CAN be data that an AV can use to mitigate risks because you claim they don't need ANY external data. And yet you'll explain how the AV will get external data via "broadcast" and "RADAR" and "sidebands".
I get it that you hate Comcast. I also get it that you don't understand what "autonomous" means. Really, I do. Until you do suss out the real meaning, there's nothing more to say. If you ever do manage to cut off the external data that your new AV uses to keep you safer, please don't use the public highways. Or please do try suing the car manufacturer for false advertising when you learn that your "autonomous" vehicle actually uses external data to make driving decisions, because, according to you, it ain't autonomous if it uses external data of any kind.
Explain exactly how a self driving will use an internet connection.
Explain how you don't understand the word "innovation", or explain how you know today every data source that an AV might make use of next year or in five years.
But, of course, one example that has already been talked about is getting Waze real-time traffic info. That's just one example. Will you be happy when your self-driving car pulls up to the ass end of a traffic jam with you stuck inside, that it could have avoided had it had access to traffic data already available on the internet? Would you not joining the parking lot and sitting idle for an hour be a reasonable use of an internet connection in your opinion?
You're making the case for an unneeded high priority data channel right there,
Au contraire what? This neither assumes that such a "channel" will always exist nor does it contradict the claim that such a channel can be useful. In fact, it does just the opposite. Risk management is a very good reason to have a data channel available. "A good reason to have" is not the same as "must always be available". If that channel can be made more useful by making it a higher priority than a 5Mb image of the grandkids in an email, then that's a Good Thing to do. And, unlike your chicken little assumption, "a good reason to have" does not mean "will immediately crash if it isn't available."
Also, autonomous means self-directed. Able to act on its own.
Able to make its own decisions. It does NOT mean "make decisions in a data vacuum".
I never said it meant "operate in a data vacuum."
When you say it can operate without external data, that is exactly what you mean. You said, quote, "Autonomous cars don't need data channels of any sort. They're autonomous." That's a data vacuum, and it is a patently absurd claim to make. That's also a clear admission that you really don't know what "autonomous" means, since "don't need data" is not part of that definition. Every AV needs data to make decisions, and the better the data it can get the better decisions it will make. Like the example I already gave, where an AV that can get real-time data about a road closure could have chosen a different main route to conduct that four hour trip instead of getting to the crash site, deciding it can't get through, and then reverting to the back roads and taking an extra hour and a half.
Bend, which is east of the Cascades and in the semi-arid Central Oregon region is known as one of the best bicycle cities in the nation.
It is one of the few larger cities on that side. I didn't say there were none.
Lots of small communities all over the state that are reliant on tourism have bike paths in the recreation areas.
How did they ever manage to build those bike paths without this tax on bicycles? It would be impossible! There has to be a state-wide tax to pay for such stuff, because the state knows best where such things are needed and should be built.
Rural people who don't ride bicycles will benefit from many of the improvements paid for by this.
No, they will see no benefit. More bike paths do not make their lives better, especially if they don't ride. No rural area is going to put in a fancy bike path using this money when they won't get the money and it won't be used by that many people anyway. Bend might, but all the rural areas will not.
You don't know much about Oregon. About 50% of the people are urban, about 50% are rural, and we balance our spending very well around the State.
I've lived here for 25years so I know it pretty well.
50% by population is urban, not by area. I spoke of the large cities which have most of the population. Did you read what I wrote or just what you wanted to read? And no, the spending is not that well balanced. It's a side-effect of having the large empty areas run by the few populated ones.
You might want to recall the saying that is often attributed to De Tocqueville, something about a democracy can last only until the majority realizes it can tax the minority to pay for things it wants. Like more bike paths...
You can blah-blah all you like against State taxes, but we have direct democracy here and half the taxes pass.
This bicycle tax was not created via "direct democracy", it was from the loonies in Salem. It doesn't matter how few or how many of the ballot measure taxes pass.
Which proves that they are both good and appropriate.
Oh, please. The large cities passing taxes on everyone else doesn't prove that those taxes are either good or appropriate. It means that the people in the big cities think the people in the smaller cities and rural areas should pay that tax.
Turn off the AM radio.
I think this means you assume you are very smart because you don't listen to AM. You might not recognize that there is a lot of liberal AM in this state since you don't bother listening. Maybe you don't know Oregon that well, yourself?
Why does an autonomous vehicle need any sort of real-time connection?
Oh, I don't know. Maybe for safety and traffic and other kinds of data it can use to mitigate or avoid risks. It's not hard to think of stuff it could use to make its operation safer.
It doesn't, any more than one with a driver does.
I made a five and a half hour car trip a couple of weeks ago. It would have been four hours long except I didn't have the real-time data that told me that the road I was taking was completely blocked by a crash a half hour earlier. I had to find an alternate route that took much longer. Had I gotten the real-time data about the crash I could have gone a different alternate that wouldn't have cost an hour and a half.
Additional requirements are just additional points of failure / attack.
You have this odd notion that when a data source that provides safety and guidance data to an autonomous vehicle goes away it means that the vehicle immediately crashes. Yes, a wireless data stream will be a point of attack. Just like tires are a point of attack.
And then you act like a moron by assuming that such a data channel will always be available.
I made no such assumption.
And then you contradict the need for such a data channel
What you quoted contradicted nothing.
Autonomous cars don't need data channels of any sort.
Right. There will never be any information that will allow risk reduction or mitigation based on external data that an autonomous vehicle could make use of. Says you.
They're autonomous.
That word does not mean what you think it means. Hint: autonomous does not mean "operates in a data vacuum."
so that the communication between the car and the 'other end' has low latency. Not the communication between the 'other end' and whatever network it's connected to.
If you don't understand the internet then just please say so. If a vehicle is making an internet connection to something AT THE OTHER END (and there is always "the other end") and the other end is not getting the packets from the vehicle in a timely manner, then it cannot RESPOND in a timely manner. A "paid fastlane" isn't just for the "vehicle end" of the data, it applies to the full path from vehicle to ANYWHERE.
Comcast could create 'fast lane' wireless that covers 100% of the country with quadruple redundancy, and it would have zero effect on inter-vehicle communications.
Two problems with that statement. First, if Comcast creates such a massive infrastructure and the other anticipated infrastructure isn't built out as fast, then Comcast may become the carrier of choice. Rules change. Times change. Governments are often slow to build up the stuff they plan on building. (I have a statewide Oregon Wireless Information Network -- OWIN -- to sell you if you don't believe me. And lots of localities that were planning on being a part of that network but aren't.)
But more important, vehicle to ANYWHERE includes vehicle to wired other end, and Comcast is a very big player in the "wired other end" services already.
Comcast is presenting inter-vehicle communications
I don't believe they put such a limit on the reason.
Uh huh. I'm going to drive to another state to save $15./s
The largest city in the state is just across the river from Washington. People from Washington come to Oregon to avoid paying sales taxes on large ticket items. People from Oregon go to Washington to buy fireworks, specifically from the tribal stands that carry better stuff than is legal in Oregon.
You're being sarcastic when what you say is actually true. The downside to crossing the river to buy a bike is that you'll pay sales tax on it. Vancouver has an 8.4% sales tax, so a $200 bike will cost $16.80 in taxes. Idaho has a 6% sales tax, so people in eastern Oregon might very well go to Idaho to pay $3 less for the $200 bike. Utah's base rate is 4.7%.
That statement is too stupid for words. Assuming that a data connection that can provide safety information in real time is required to keep a vehicle from crashing is just moronic. Reducing risks is a valid reason to have a high priority data channel, because reducing risks can save lives. It doesn't mean that every car will crash when that data isn't available.
And, I'll point out, this is just one example of what might be valuable to have in the future. It isn't the only reason.
The state, not the federal government, is collecting this bicycle tax. Is that not local enough for you?
If you knew anything about the state of Oregon, you'd know the answer to that question is a solid and resounding NO.
Oregon has three major cities: Portland, Salem, and Eugene. It has a handful of reasonably sized cities, almost all of them west of the cascades. Everything east of those mountains is pretty hot, dry, and empty. Not totally empty, but the counties are very large and don't have many people in them.
The bicycle tax will benefit the people in the three largest cities mostly, with a little benefit to the other cities. (My own city already has bike paths almost everywhere.) There will be zero benefit to those living in Baker, Malheur, or a large number of other Oregon counties.
So, no, state taxes are not the best way to decide to pay for very local improvements.
So then maybe counties do it... then I can't commute to work because, while my county may have paths, I have to commute to, or through, one that doesn't.
In Oregon, if you are commuting through a county to get to work, you need to move a lot closer to work. Some of our counties are absolutely huge.
Like roadways, ideally the state makes sure there are main connections throughout the state;
Let me guess -- you live in Rhode Island or Delaware.
counties could then collect an extra tax and add smaller ones to make getting around easier,
Adding taxes does not make getting around easier. It just takes more money from the taxpayer.
but having every little locality just completely do their own thing removes a significant part of the benefits.
It allows each locality decide what is appropriate for that locality, which is much better than having the state take away money it will spend in the large cities.
If every state chose a different broadcast system, if they all chose different railway gauges, different road widths,
I find it hard to believe that anyone could build a bike path in one county that was incompatible with the bike path in another. It's a narrow strip of concrete. If you, as a bike rider, cannot figure out how to ride on a narrow strip of concrete just because it wasn't build to your own county's standards, then you shouldn't be riding a bike in the first place.
Likewise, at a lower level, if every locality had their own bike paths, but none of the connected to each other, then that would suck.
Suck for who? Not the people who are paying for bike paths to get around their own community. It might suck for outsiders who want to travel across a county they don't live in or pay taxes in so they can get to another county to work, like you. Of course, that assumes that nobody in those localities would decide to build a path to the edge of their locality to connect with another, which is a pretty absurd assumption.
They do not NOW you blithering morons, but are you really willing to preclude they never will????
This. Vehicle to ANYTHING means that the other end may be on a wired internet connection. Comcast doesn't provide just "wireless broadband" (and they're new to that, even), they have wired business services.
This wouldn't even be a valid question if congress broke up ISPs so they couldn't legally own content or content delivery.
I asked about cable TV, not ISP. Comcast will ALWAYS own content and content delivery as a cable TV provider, and any laws that prohibit an ISP from also providing content (besides being stupid and harmful to the consumer) will not apply to the cable TV side of Comcast. (Stupid because that would prevent your ISP from being your mail server or having a web presence to deal with your account. That's 'content'.) And saying an ISP cannot own content or content delivery is also stupid, because content delivery is the JOB of the ISP, and is what people pay the ISP to do.
That's what you are calling for when you imply that data caps on internet data that will limit your access to competitor's internet streams should also apply to Comcast's video services.
Yup. If they have to use the ISPs data services, then the content provider shouldn't be able to dictate special treatment from the ISP.
Comcast is not an ISP when it is providing OnDemand. Do you also think that you should be limited in the number of phone calls you can make via CenturyLink if you have DSL through them, because they have a data cap on the DSL? If you might run into a problem using Vonage for your phone via DSL you should also have a limit on the "data" you can use to make POTS calls, too?
Yet comcast is in favor of, and even implements, data caps on their ISP service, while comcast's video on demand services are exempt from those data caps.
Video on demand (OnDemand) uses cable TV channels, not internet data. And OnDemand data doesn't cross an exchange boundary.
Data caps imposed upon competitors' video on demand services but not imposed on comcast's video on demand services are anti-competitive.
Do you think there should be a cap on the amount of cable TV you can watch when you pay for "cable TV"? That's what you are calling for when you imply that data caps on internet data that will limit your access to competitor's internet streams should also apply to Comcast's video services.
Please don't use the public internet for communication to the vehicles.
You don't expect car companies to build out their own communications infrastructure to provide data to their vehicles, do you? What communications system do you think they will use if not the "public internet"?
Slashdot Mirror
You aren't making any sense. At all. Yes, data that a car obtains over the Internet comes from the Internet. Congratulations. You've just stated a tautolog that has no bearing on the original topic of discussion.
The original topic of discussion is the ability to create a paid fastlane for some companies FOR DATA CARRIED OVER THE INTERNET to AVs. Now that you finally admit that the data does, indeed, traverse the internet and not just the "last mile" wireless connection from some cell carrier to the car, maybe you realize that a fast lane for that data is ON THE INTERNET, which net neutrality laws would prohibit.
existing cellular networking is well beyond the point where making latency better is not worth the expense.
And now you're back at considering only the wireless cell carrier connection and not the entire path for the data. I had such high hopes that when you admitted that the data comes over the internet that you might look at the big picture, but sadly, no.
"The only data an AV can ever ever need is what it can get from other cars around it" is another such pronouncement.
You're the only one implying that any of us ever said that. What we said was that:
a car must be capable of driving safely without relying on the Internet. That's an indisputable fact.
You say I'm the one making that statement, and then you repeat it again yourself. You deny that there might be any data that can make the car operate more safely that it could get from the internet, and that's just poppycock.
Your "indisputable facts" are also indisputable opinion. You don't know for a fact that there will never be data that can improve the safety of operation available via the internet, you just assume it must be so because it is not so today. As I asked, do you still ride your horse to school, both ways, uphill, in the snow, because that was good enough for your grandfather and only the "heat death of the universe" could possible change those indisputable facts?
By contrast, the serious harm caused by paid prioritization is extremely obvious
If find "it's obvious" to be a particularly unconvincing argument, especially when it comes to the future.
from content providers that are not their customers
I think the point is that the data providers on the internet, using Comcast business ISP service to provide the data you cannot imagine existing ARE COMCAST CUSTOMERS. It's the AV getting the data that are not the customers, and they aren't paying extra.
If an ISP can extort money from content providers that are not their customers merely to prevent throttling traffic
Only zealots equate improved QoS for some data to deliberate throttling of other data.
You're like the guy who after being told that there's one in a million odds, says, "So you're saying there's a chance?"
No, I'm the guy who is saying that we do not know the future well enough to create laws to hobble it based on ignorance.
Vehicles with a human operator don't need remote controls.
Non sequitor. Who is talking about remote controls?
In the case of a human operator, it also doesn't need external inputs. Get over it.
What human can do much of anything without external inputs? Maybe you. You seem very good at it, but the product is not very good at all.
Controlling cars via the internet
Nobody is talking about controlling cars via the internet. Where did you get that shit from?
The safest car will be one that has zero internet control connections.
Because you cannot imagine that maybe someday there will be some data that can help the car make better decisions, you spout this proof by assertion. The safest car is the one that is parked in the garage; the second safest is the one that uses all useful data to make the best decisions and does not arbitrarily ignore "external data" (which it certainly DOES need) while carrying its human cargo.
By your semantic, every activity is testing.
In the days when a product didn't go out the door to be sold until it was tested, your point may have been valid. In modern production systems, every activity is testing, even routine use by consumers. Automotive recalls are just the tip of the iceberg in recognizing that; every product you buy is being tested by you and whether you call customer support to get it fixed or not are the test results.
Wow, you just keep proving how stupid you are. All cars driven by humans are autonomous, and don't need another vehicle to have driven the road before they do.
The irony of your posts is delicious. Now you seem to think that "autonomous" means "doesn't need another vehicle to have driven the road before". And you call someone else a moron.
That is perfectly doable without any internet connection whatsoever.
Perfectly? Really? There is no data from the internet that could be used to improve any decision an AV makes. Nothing could ever be developed that could improve things. Ever.
The safety aspect is avoiding collisions
Since you think that is the only aspect to safety, there is no common ground to discuss this on.
you want the autonomous cars to exhibit "flocking" behavior - as each one dynamically reacts to the driving environment, optimal solutions automatically emerge.
Oh my God. You WANT emergent behaviors from our AV in action. You don't want predictable, safe, consistent behaviour, you seek the new and unanticipated. On the public highways. "Flocking", you call it. There is a better term.
??? That question doesn't make sense. The cell company isn't originating anything.
So the data that it isn't originating comes from somewhere else, right? Like OVER THE INTERNET. Pulling teeth, but we finally got there.
It can't, because it isn't plausible for an autonomous car to need data that is simultaneously both time-critical and coming from something that isn't physically nearby
History is replete with people making grand pronouncements of what is good enough for the future. "All you need is a good ship and a few stars to sail her by." And now we have GPS. "GPS with selective availability is all anyone needs to keep track of where they are." And now SA is turned off and we can do so many more things.
"The only data an AV can ever ever need is what it can get from other cars around it" is another such pronouncement.
If a vehicle cannot make reasonable decisions without external data,
Straw man.
None of the data you're describing has anything to do with mitigating risks.
Of course it does. Knowing that there is a accident ahead allows for planning on how to get past it, instead of waiting to come upon it and having to make a quick decision. Planning that can include using a different main road without incurring a huge time penalty, instead of using a back road that still costs an hour and a half extra.
An autonomous vehicle must be able to be completely blinded to all data external to the vehicle and still be able to drive safely.
You must have some amazingly limited definition of "external data" to make that kind of statement. Almost as if you define "external data" to mean "any data the car doesn't need to make some decision, whether it is the safest course of action or not."
Any autonomous vehicle that can't do so simply should not be allowed on the roads,
I agree. That pretty much gets rid of all of them.
We have autonomous vehicles out there on the roads today, and exactly none of them benefit from prioritization, much less paid prioritization.
As I already pointed out, not many of them, and most of those are supervised by an engineer or two. But you are so firmly entrenched in what is being done today that you cannot imagine anything new that might come along when the numbers of AV increase. If it is good enough for today, it is good enough for always, right? Do you still ride a horse to school, both ways, uphill, in the snow?
And again, paid prioritization of traffic from one company's vehicles over another company's vehicles can never be beneficial, period.
It's the company providing the data, not the company manufacturing the car.
That's why all inter-car communication will always necessarily be either direct broadcast or mesh-based, not server-based.
Wouldn't it be interesting to figure out sometime in the not too distant future that not all data that an AV can use to make a trip safer will be stuff it gets from the car next to it, but might also come from a server somewhere on the internet?
even if we ignored the fact that it would be inherently inferior to a local mesh network,
Facts not in evidence. It's 2AM and you are the only car on the road. Where's your "inherently better mesh network"?
there would still be absolutely no sane reason for the FCC to allow a cellular company to charge money to the car company in exchange for getting the bits there faster.
1. For data products that we have today.
2. It wouldn't necessarily be a cellular company.
3. It wouldn't necessarily be a car company.
The cellular company should simply make the bits from all cars get there faster, non-preferentially, and slow down non-car traffic.
I have a cellular modem. How does the cell company know it isn't in a car? How does the cell company know it isn't data for the onboard entertainment system which isn't as important? And how is the cell company originating all this data, and not some company on the internet that is sending it to the car?
There's no reason to allow what is at that point a basic consumer need
How can data that isn't needed become a "basic consumer need"?
Also, a paid fast lane is a fast path from vehicles of a specific company to the Internet backbone.
It is a fast lane for a company, on the internet, for data relevant to AVs. Every connection from an AV to the internet goes someplace. "Vehicle to anywhere" has an anywhere to connect to. That "anywhere" is on the internet. Why is this so hard?
Nothing in net neutrality laws would prevent companies from building a fast path from all vehicles to the backbone,
If only the only important thing was getting to the backbone, and not to the data source or sink at the other end of the internet connection. If so, why do people complain so bitterly about congestion at border gateways? They've got their 50Mbps connection to the "backbone", what else is important? Oh, you mean actually getting data over that backbone, all the way from the source to the destination, is an issue?
The laws just say that A. the ISPs can't charge the car companies for giving priority to cars,
It also says that company B, that provides data used by AVs, cannot pay more to get their data prioritized to the AVs. That's the part you keep missing. Data from company B going to ALL and ANY AV is one company getting priority over others.
All traffic of a given type (e.g. vehicle navigation data, if you want to use that rather silly, highly latency-tolerant example) must get the same priority.
Yes, which will be the same as the data from Netflix or Google or .... Perhaps you can define how you know what this data (and only you are limiting it to "vehicle navigation data") is and that it is bound for an AV and not another system. Will AVs get allocated a specific address block? Oh, wait, that would be prioritization based on source or destination -- clearly not net neutral.
The fact is, this is new stuff. We don't have a history of AVs cluttering the highways yet. Those AVs that are out there are few, far between, and in many cases populated by engineers supervising the autonomous behavior. We don't know what kinds of data might be critical to have, yet. That's why we want to allow innovation. Saying "your data isn't more important than pix of Aunt Milly at the crocheting competition" is absurd.
Real-time refers to something in which microseconds matter,
"Real-time" has many meanings when used by humans. It doesn't always means "microseconds."
Besides, the first cars that come upon an accident usually don't have to slow down much anyway.
When a crash blocks the highway they better slow down ALOT and RIGHT NOW or else they're going to join the fun of an ambulance ride, or watching their cars get towed away. By law, the first cars are supposed to stop to provide assistance.
Most navigation systems just use a radio receiver and get broadcasts from the transit agencies based on fixed RADAR stations.
There were so many radar stations along that section of highway the candy bar in my pocket was just molten goo, for sure.
The vehicle must be able to drive safely without external data, or it is not autonomous.
That is so stupid that I know you must be trolling at this point. Autonomous does NOT mean "without external data". It means that it makes decisions about how to respond BASED ON EXTERNAL DATA instead of the human making those decisions.
The fact that it can do a better job of getting you there in a timely manner doesn't mean that it needs a high-priority channel.
It isn't a fact that it can do a better job, and I didn't say it NEEDS a high priority channel. Do you not understand what "is useful" means?
Thus, making a high-priority bidirectional channel available for getting information that can be just as easily obtained by adding a $25 traffic data receiver would be patently absurd.
Do you not understand what "example" means? As in, real-time traffic data is just one example what kinds of data would be useful? Wait, you think "useful" means "mandatory", so no, I don't doubt that "example" is also beyond you.
No, the sorts of tasks that benefit from prioritization are things like live audio and video streaming.
Those are two examples of data that humans use that would benefit from prioritization, but thinking that's the only data possible is basing a long-term decision on static thinking. We don't know all the kinds of data that AV might make use of because, first of all, YOU are adamant that the AV cannot use it (because if it did it wouldn't be autonomous) and second because they aren't common on the highways yet and we don't know what might be important.
And these things are readily identifiable by port numbers,
If you don't understand how the internet works, just say so. You don't need to demonstrate an ignorance of the ability to use any port number for any service to make that clear. Maybe you've never run an SSH server on a port other than 22, or FTP on anything other than 21, or a web server on anything other than 80, or UUCP on anything other than 540, but some of us do that kind of thing and we know how trivially easy it is.
QoS flags,
Ditto. Who sets the flags? The sender.
Remember, this is not about prioritization, but rather paid prioritization,
For a specific source, remember. Net neutrality, in the minds of the zealots, means NO differentiation, not that it is ok to slow their email or web browsing down because someone else has a video (or data that an AV can make good use of to mitigate risks) that needs higher priority. And YOU don't even admit that there CAN be data that an AV can use to mitigate risks because you claim they don't need ANY external data. And yet you'll explain how the AV will get external data via "broadcast" and "RADAR" and "sidebands".
I get it that you hate Comcast. I also get it that you don't understand what "autonomous" means. Really, I do. Until you do suss out the real meaning, there's nothing more to say. If you ever do manage to cut off the external data that your new AV uses to keep you safer, please don't use the public highways. Or please do try suing the car manufacturer for false advertising when you learn that your "autonomous" vehicle actually uses external data to make driving decisions, because, according to you, it ain't autonomous if it uses external data of any kind.
Explain exactly how a self driving will use an internet connection.
Explain how you don't understand the word "innovation", or explain how you know today every data source that an AV might make use of next year or in five years.
But, of course, one example that has already been talked about is getting Waze real-time traffic info. That's just one example. Will you be happy when your self-driving car pulls up to the ass end of a traffic jam with you stuck inside, that it could have avoided had it had access to traffic data already available on the internet? Would you not joining the parking lot and sitting idle for an hour be a reasonable use of an internet connection in your opinion?
You're making the case for an unneeded high priority data channel right there,
Au contraire what? This neither assumes that such a "channel" will always exist nor does it contradict the claim that such a channel can be useful. In fact, it does just the opposite. Risk management is a very good reason to have a data channel available. "A good reason to have" is not the same as "must always be available". If that channel can be made more useful by making it a higher priority than a 5Mb image of the grandkids in an email, then that's a Good Thing to do. And, unlike your chicken little assumption, "a good reason to have" does not mean "will immediately crash if it isn't available."
Also, autonomous means self-directed. Able to act on its own.
Able to make its own decisions. It does NOT mean "make decisions in a data vacuum".
I never said it meant "operate in a data vacuum."
When you say it can operate without external data, that is exactly what you mean. You said, quote, "Autonomous cars don't need data channels of any sort. They're autonomous." That's a data vacuum, and it is a patently absurd claim to make. That's also a clear admission that you really don't know what "autonomous" means, since "don't need data" is not part of that definition. Every AV needs data to make decisions, and the better the data it can get the better decisions it will make. Like the example I already gave, where an AV that can get real-time data about a road closure could have chosen a different main route to conduct that four hour trip instead of getting to the crash site, deciding it can't get through, and then reverting to the back roads and taking an extra hour and a half.
Bend, which is east of the Cascades and in the semi-arid Central Oregon region is known as one of the best bicycle cities in the nation.
It is one of the few larger cities on that side. I didn't say there were none.
Lots of small communities all over the state that are reliant on tourism have bike paths in the recreation areas.
How did they ever manage to build those bike paths without this tax on bicycles? It would be impossible! There has to be a state-wide tax to pay for such stuff, because the state knows best where such things are needed and should be built.
Rural people who don't ride bicycles will benefit from many of the improvements paid for by this.
No, they will see no benefit. More bike paths do not make their lives better, especially if they don't ride. No rural area is going to put in a fancy bike path using this money when they won't get the money and it won't be used by that many people anyway. Bend might, but all the rural areas will not.
You don't know much about Oregon. About 50% of the people are urban, about 50% are rural, and we balance our spending very well around the State.
I've lived here for 25years so I know it pretty well. 50% by population is urban, not by area. I spoke of the large cities which have most of the population. Did you read what I wrote or just what you wanted to read? And no, the spending is not that well balanced. It's a side-effect of having the large empty areas run by the few populated ones.
You might want to recall the saying that is often attributed to De Tocqueville, something about a democracy can last only until the majority realizes it can tax the minority to pay for things it wants. Like more bike paths...
You can blah-blah all you like against State taxes, but we have direct democracy here and half the taxes pass.
This bicycle tax was not created via "direct democracy", it was from the loonies in Salem. It doesn't matter how few or how many of the ballot measure taxes pass.
Which proves that they are both good and appropriate.
Oh, please. The large cities passing taxes on everyone else doesn't prove that those taxes are either good or appropriate. It means that the people in the big cities think the people in the smaller cities and rural areas should pay that tax.
Turn off the AM radio.
I think this means you assume you are very smart because you don't listen to AM. You might not recognize that there is a lot of liberal AM in this state since you don't bother listening. Maybe you don't know Oregon that well, yourself?
Why does an autonomous vehicle need any sort of real-time connection?
Oh, I don't know. Maybe for safety and traffic and other kinds of data it can use to mitigate or avoid risks. It's not hard to think of stuff it could use to make its operation safer.
It doesn't, any more than one with a driver does.
I made a five and a half hour car trip a couple of weeks ago. It would have been four hours long except I didn't have the real-time data that told me that the road I was taking was completely blocked by a crash a half hour earlier. I had to find an alternate route that took much longer. Had I gotten the real-time data about the crash I could have gone a different alternate that wouldn't have cost an hour and a half.
Additional requirements are just additional points of failure / attack.
You have this odd notion that when a data source that provides safety and guidance data to an autonomous vehicle goes away it means that the vehicle immediately crashes. Yes, a wireless data stream will be a point of attack. Just like tires are a point of attack.
Haven't we learned ANYTHING yet?
An ironic question.
And then you act like a moron by assuming that such a data channel will always be available.
I made no such assumption.
And then you contradict the need for such a data channel
What you quoted contradicted nothing.
Autonomous cars don't need data channels of any sort.
Right. There will never be any information that will allow risk reduction or mitigation based on external data that an autonomous vehicle could make use of. Says you.
They're autonomous.
That word does not mean what you think it means. Hint: autonomous does not mean "operates in a data vacuum."
It's like Bill Gates saying "1/3 of a second should be fast enough for anything".
There is a very famous saying by, as I recall, a president of IBM, saying that 640k should be enough memory to do anything.
so that the communication between the car and the 'other end' has low latency. Not the communication between the 'other end' and whatever network it's connected to.
If you don't understand the internet then just please say so. If a vehicle is making an internet connection to something AT THE OTHER END (and there is always "the other end") and the other end is not getting the packets from the vehicle in a timely manner, then it cannot RESPOND in a timely manner. A "paid fastlane" isn't just for the "vehicle end" of the data, it applies to the full path from vehicle to ANYWHERE.
Comcast could create 'fast lane' wireless that covers 100% of the country with quadruple redundancy, and it would have zero effect on inter-vehicle communications.
Two problems with that statement. First, if Comcast creates such a massive infrastructure and the other anticipated infrastructure isn't built out as fast, then Comcast may become the carrier of choice. Rules change. Times change. Governments are often slow to build up the stuff they plan on building. (I have a statewide Oregon Wireless Information Network -- OWIN -- to sell you if you don't believe me. And lots of localities that were planning on being a part of that network but aren't.)
But more important, vehicle to ANYWHERE includes vehicle to wired other end, and Comcast is a very big player in the "wired other end" services already.
Comcast is presenting inter-vehicle communications
I don't believe they put such a limit on the reason.
Uh huh. I'm going to drive to another state to save $15. /s
The largest city in the state is just across the river from Washington. People from Washington come to Oregon to avoid paying sales taxes on large ticket items. People from Oregon go to Washington to buy fireworks, specifically from the tribal stands that carry better stuff than is legal in Oregon.
You're being sarcastic when what you say is actually true. The downside to crossing the river to buy a bike is that you'll pay sales tax on it. Vancouver has an 8.4% sales tax, so a $200 bike will cost $16.80 in taxes. Idaho has a 6% sales tax, so people in eastern Oregon might very well go to Idaho to pay $3 less for the $200 bike. Utah's base rate is 4.7%.
"The internet is down agai ..." CRASHBANGBOOM
That statement is too stupid for words. Assuming that a data connection that can provide safety information in real time is required to keep a vehicle from crashing is just moronic. Reducing risks is a valid reason to have a high priority data channel, because reducing risks can save lives. It doesn't mean that every car will crash when that data isn't available.
And, I'll point out, this is just one example of what might be valuable to have in the future. It isn't the only reason.
The state, not the federal government, is collecting this bicycle tax. Is that not local enough for you?
If you knew anything about the state of Oregon, you'd know the answer to that question is a solid and resounding NO.
Oregon has three major cities: Portland, Salem, and Eugene. It has a handful of reasonably sized cities, almost all of them west of the cascades. Everything east of those mountains is pretty hot, dry, and empty. Not totally empty, but the counties are very large and don't have many people in them.
The bicycle tax will benefit the people in the three largest cities mostly, with a little benefit to the other cities. (My own city already has bike paths almost everywhere.) There will be zero benefit to those living in Baker, Malheur, or a large number of other Oregon counties.
So, no, state taxes are not the best way to decide to pay for very local improvements.
So then maybe counties do it... then I can't commute to work because, while my county may have paths, I have to commute to, or through, one that doesn't.
In Oregon, if you are commuting through a county to get to work, you need to move a lot closer to work. Some of our counties are absolutely huge.
Like roadways, ideally the state makes sure there are main connections throughout the state;
Let me guess -- you live in Rhode Island or Delaware.
counties could then collect an extra tax and add smaller ones to make getting around easier,
Adding taxes does not make getting around easier. It just takes more money from the taxpayer.
but having every little locality just completely do their own thing removes a significant part of the benefits.
It allows each locality decide what is appropriate for that locality, which is much better than having the state take away money it will spend in the large cities.
If every state chose a different broadcast system, if they all chose different railway gauges, different road widths,
I find it hard to believe that anyone could build a bike path in one county that was incompatible with the bike path in another. It's a narrow strip of concrete. If you, as a bike rider, cannot figure out how to ride on a narrow strip of concrete just because it wasn't build to your own county's standards, then you shouldn't be riding a bike in the first place.
Likewise, at a lower level, if every locality had their own bike paths, but none of the connected to each other, then that would suck.
Suck for who? Not the people who are paying for bike paths to get around their own community. It might suck for outsiders who want to travel across a county they don't live in or pay taxes in so they can get to another county to work, like you. Of course, that assumes that nobody in those localities would decide to build a path to the edge of their locality to connect with another, which is a pretty absurd assumption.
They do not NOW you blithering morons, but are you really willing to preclude they never will????
This. Vehicle to ANYTHING means that the other end may be on a wired internet connection. Comcast doesn't provide just "wireless broadband" (and they're new to that, even), they have wired business services.
This wouldn't even be a valid question if congress broke up ISPs so they couldn't legally own content or content delivery.
I asked about cable TV, not ISP. Comcast will ALWAYS own content and content delivery as a cable TV provider, and any laws that prohibit an ISP from also providing content (besides being stupid and harmful to the consumer) will not apply to the cable TV side of Comcast. (Stupid because that would prevent your ISP from being your mail server or having a web presence to deal with your account. That's 'content'.) And saying an ISP cannot own content or content delivery is also stupid, because content delivery is the JOB of the ISP, and is what people pay the ISP to do.
That's what you are calling for when you imply that data caps on internet data that will limit your access to competitor's internet streams should also apply to Comcast's video services.
Yup. If they have to use the ISPs data services, then the content provider shouldn't be able to dictate special treatment from the ISP.
Comcast is not an ISP when it is providing OnDemand. Do you also think that you should be limited in the number of phone calls you can make via CenturyLink if you have DSL through them, because they have a data cap on the DSL? If you might run into a problem using Vonage for your phone via DSL you should also have a limit on the "data" you can use to make POTS calls, too?
If dependent on a network connection; a RF jammer would be a quick ticket to causing major traffic accidents.
That statement applies just as well to any AV that uses mesh networking to communicate with neighboring vehicles.
Yet comcast is in favor of, and even implements, data caps on their ISP service, while comcast's video on demand services are exempt from those data caps.
Video on demand (OnDemand) uses cable TV channels, not internet data. And OnDemand data doesn't cross an exchange boundary.
Data caps imposed upon competitors' video on demand services but not imposed on comcast's video on demand services are anti-competitive.
Do you think there should be a cap on the amount of cable TV you can watch when you pay for "cable TV"? That's what you are calling for when you imply that data caps on internet data that will limit your access to competitor's internet streams should also apply to Comcast's video services.
Please don't use the public internet for communication to the vehicles.
You don't expect car companies to build out their own communications infrastructure to provide data to their vehicles, do you? What communications system do you think they will use if not the "public internet"?