the "net neutrality" FCC Court decision thread, I have no idea about this stuff

[Balog]

Did I say that all telco services, in all cities, in all countries required a monopoly?

Some services can only be served by a monopoly, while some can best be served in that way.

[MicroBalrog]

What seems to be is that in the specific context of telecommunications infastructure, the costs of laying down wire do not exclude competition per se, unless the costs of laying down wire are far more expensive in America than elsewhere. Of course, you do not always need to pull up pavement to lay new wire. It would possibly be cheaper to use push-pipes [what is the proper English name?] or poles.


P.S. Then there's WiMax, but the government here laid down so many silly rules for that, we can't have it. We can only export it.

[MicroBalrog]

P.S. I don't work in infrastructure. I merely translate contract and specifications manuals for those who do.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Partway there.  I agree in principle, but physics & business reality are still beating on this principle like a red-headed step child.

1. ISPs are not calling for a free market or abolition of the common carrier designation, but to change the deal they made with gov't so that they have fewer responsibilities for the bennies they get.  Ensuring they fill their end of a voluntary bargain is hardly a sign of gov't gone wild.

2. Also, there are going to be messy gov't/business/market entanglements when the business model and/or technological reality requires gov't involvement.  

Stringing cable is the obvious one here.  Gov't has stepped in to allow common carriers the ability to lay cable on common areas and on private property, as well as to maintain it.  Several companies can lay cable (power, phone, cable tv/data), but there is a physical & practical limit to how many cables can be laid & maintained in a system.  Should gov't & the taxpayers require no reciprocity for allowing companies to use common areas and private property (that is not the companies property) to make money?  

Also, it is a practical monopoly, or at least competition is near impossible due to physical & technological reality (since two cables cannot occupy the same space).

If'n Comcast & Co. don't want to keep up their end of the bargain, then maybe we ought to boot their signal & cabling from property they don't own?  

Now, if wireless broadband eventually develops to the point it can equal or exceed copper & fiber optic cabling performance, I can see less need for gov't involvement, though limited RF spectrum will still impose limits on how many competitors can enter the market.

It's interesting just how subjective these "realities" turn out to be.

In the last few months I've learned far more about the Indian telecom systems than I ever wanted to know.  Allow me to explain one very interesting aspect of their telecoms:

Historically, India has viewed traditional telephone service as a necessary and vital service that should be made available for the whole population.  To that end, the government until very recently has owned and operated all wired telephone services as a government-run company.  The government was responsible for setting the standards, for deciding what rates and services to offer to customers, for building and maintaining the infrastructure. All of this with the aim of maximizing the peoples' access to this vital service.

By contrast, India has always viewed cell phones as a luxury good, a trapping of the wealthy, not something that exists for the good of the people.  As a result, the government mostly stayed out of the mobile realm, left it up to private investors and foreign corporations to figure out on their own.  

Results:  Wired telephone service is poor quality, overpriced, and reliability tends to be 50/50 in most locations.  Wired service extends to roughly 40 million people.  Cell service in India is as good as it is anyhwere.  Rates are cheap, access is high, reliability is sound, and people choose mobile phones overwhelmingly over the government offered services.  There are 500 million mobile phone users.

Ponder that for a while.  The government-addled system was able to provide crummy service to some 3% of the population, despite having the resources of the entire government available for use.  The eeevil for-profit unregulated private telecom companies were able to provide high quality service to about 40% of the population.  India isn't a wealthy country by western standards, but the free market was still able to give almost half of the people there access to high quality mobile phone service just like we have here in wealthiest-country-in-the-world America.

I'm told that cable TV and high speed data connections are the same way.  Some are based on public monopolies (avoid at all costs) and some based on the private competition model (those tend to be trustworthy).

So now some here want me to believe that it's "reality" that government must exert a heavy hand in the telecom industry here in the US.  Well, pardon me if I don't believe that hooey.  We have heavy government involvement, but we do not need it and we do not benefit from it.  We have a legacy from Ma Bell of only doing telecoms the public utility monopoly way, and while most folks have never seen any other way, there are in fact other/better ways of doing it.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

And fer cryin' out loud, Micro is dead right.  If his crummy socialist country (no offense) can muster up two separate competing networks, then surely we Americans can do at least that much, if not much better.  There's no excuse for our telecoms to run as monopolies.

[tyme]

So let me get this straight... you're arguing against net neutrality (and in favor of the recent court decision) based on an ideal where (political) barrier to entry for telecom infrastructure companies is non-existent, and where anyone can get permission to lay fiber by digging up streets and alleys?

Given that we're not going to see that ideal anytime soon, are you still against net neutrality?

Case study that shows that heavy government regulation of wired telecom does not necessarily lead to bad service: Japan.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/28/AR2007082801990.html

[MicroBalrog]

There's no need to lay fiber by digging up streets and alleys. Even if you're laying fiber, you can do it by push-piping or by other means. Nor is there a need for telecoms to be fiber-based.

[mtnbkr]

Rolling out wired service is much more complicated than rolling out wireless.  You can't even compare the two.   

Of course, if you like busted water mains in the middle of a VERY congested area in the middle of rush hour (as happened in Tysons Corner, Va yesterday), then I guess you could say rolling out wired services is easy.  The water main was busted by one of the pipe drilling rigs used to run new cable/fiber/etc.  They were merely inches off the mark.  Losing power was a frequent occurrence in mine and my friends' offices in the area due to construction faults.  Not that lines weren't marked and all, but the density is just so high, a couple inches meant the difference between clearing a utility and knocking it out.  Imagine that on a national scale as every utility around tries to run their dedicated lines to each location.  That we have just about every house wired for telephone and electricity and that both services are pretty reliable says a lot about our evil monopolies.  And, if you can't get wireline telco service, most areas have functional cellular service.

What seems to be is that in the specific context of telecommunications infastructure, the costs of laying down wire do not exclude competition per se, unless the costs of laying down wire are far more expensive in America than elsewhere. Of course, you do not always need to pull up pavement to lay new wire. It would possibly be cheaper to use push-pipes [what is the proper English name?] or poles.

The distances here are extreme compared to many areas and the competition for space for those lines is fierce.  As I said above, being a couple inches off when drilling can mean the difference between clearing and knocking out another utility.  BTW, as more stuff goes wireless, space on top of buildings is becoming prime real estate. Also, RF spectrum is becoming more and more valuable.  Without some controls on the latter, companies will start stepping on each others' signal.  It happens innocently enough today.

Regarding the comparison between Israel and the US, there's a bit of difference.  Israel is smaller than many of our states and has a population smaller than NYC.  I haven't been there, but I get the impression population density is low outside of urban centers and the age of their infrastructure is younger.  Therefore, they don't have the issues running multiple feeds hither and yonder that we have.

Chris

[mtnbkr]

There's no need to lay fiber by digging up streets and alleys. Even if you're laying fiber, you can do it by push-piping or by other means. Nor is there a need for telecoms to be fiber-based.

Addressed the pipe issue above.

If you want max performance, you go with fiber.  Wireless, even under ideal conditions, isn't fast enough or reliable enough for some needs. 

Chris

[roo_ster]

HTG:

I've been pondering wireless service in less-developed countries for a good, long while.  A few years back I had to research the commo infrastructure of a particular country 'round the Caspian Sea.  It is just plumb remarkable what one can learn about the intimate infrastructure details from open sources

Wireless is the way to go for telephony in countries that have no existing infrastructure, sure enough.  Still sketchy for data, though.

Anyways, wireless broadband is not comparable to wired, capability-wise or installation-wise.  I hope wireless soon will be as capable, but that day is in the future.  Until then, we're talking a messy gov't/business mashup that requires access to common areas and private property...and the power of gov't to access them.  That access don't come for free.  That is not subjective, it is objective, "wires gotta go somewhere" reality.

I dream of a world where some goofball with a backhoe can't sever my GB 'net access because wired data connections are obsolete for most applications.  Despite scarce RF spectrum, I expect it to be a more open market.

[Nitrogen]

The one thing about network neutrality I havn't seen anyone touch on is this:

Remember, Comcast is now getting into the streaming media business.  It'd be a great ploy for them to shape traffic from Netflix and Hulu into oblivion to force their customers to use their service.

This is another thing that Network Neutrality legislation wants to keep from happening.

I think carriers qualify as a natural monopoly in many places, and should be treated as one everywhere.

[Sergeant Bob]

This. Precisely this.

I'm in agreement as well. Does anyone seriously know what this supposed "net neutrality" is (in the real world, not in the "free love" and "free internet" world?

There is nothing "neutral" about the fracking incompetent, corrupt, over reaching, power hungry, soul eating, mindless government bureaucrats taking over the flippin' internet!

Read the bill before you sign it.

[mtnbkr]

I'm in agreement as well. Does anyone seriously know what this supposed "net neutrality" is (in the real world, not in the "free love" and "free internet" world?

There is nothing "neutral" about the fracking incompetent, corrupt, over reaching, power hungry, soul eating, mindless government bureaucrats taking over the flippin' internet!

Read the bill before you sign it.

We've already covered that.  Net Neutrality means you as a consumer have the right to send whatever legal data across your ISPs network as you deem fit within the bounds of your contracted bandwidth.  It means the ISP cannot arbitrarily block, throttle, or otherwise molest that traffic. 

For the less tech savvy out there, imagine if Ma Bell suddenly decided it could control the phone calls you made, who you made them to, and what you discussed while on the phone.  Net Neutrality seeks to stop that.

Chris

[Nitrogen]

I'm in agreement as well. Does anyone seriously know what this supposed "net neutrality" is (in the real world, not in the "free love" and "free internet" world?

There is nothing "neutral" about the fracking incompetent, corrupt, over reaching, power hungry, soul eating, mindless government bureaucrats taking over the flippin' internet!

Read the bill before you sign it.

I havn't seena net neutrality bill yet.  

When comcast limits your ability to watch Hulu, and Verizon limits your ability to use Vonage or Packet8, you'll see exactly why some type of legislation to address this is necessary.

Comcast started with a defensible position in order to test the waters.  Now that the courts have ruled, I can almost bet you wwe'll see harmful shaping of competitor traffic someday.

[KD5NRH]

BUT, it's their equipment and they can do what they want.

Your phone calls go out over somebody else's equipment.  Mind if they listen in?

When you use a credit card, it goes over their equipment again.  Guess you don't care if they use the number for whatever they want.

[mtnbkr]

FWIW, I was impacted directly by Comcast mucking about with legal internet traffic years ago.  As I said above, I built a managed VPN service for my employer.  We sold VPN access to our customers to use for a variety of purposes, including remote access.  Users with Comcast as their ISP frequently found their IPSEC traffic blocked or their accounts automagically upgraded to Business Class accounts (for a huge increase in price).  It was Comcast's assertion that ANY IPSEC traffic was indication that the user was running a business, therefore they needed a business class account.  Do you telecommute?  Chances are, you use a VPN of some sort.  Comcast would label you a business and bill you accordingly.  They finally stopped doing this, but it was a significant issue back when DSL wasn't as common and cable Internet was the fastest game in town.

Chris

[GigaBuist]

Regarding the comparison between Israel and the US, there's a bit of difference.

Yeah, we don't have yahoos lobbing rockets on us or wandering into town with a Semtex life vest.  If you've got to rebuild a road you might as well drop some more copper down with it!  I'm kidding, but I do wonder if interruptions to services are slightly more acceptable in Israel.  Just tossing it out there.  You can tell me I'm stupid and my feelings won't be hurt.

On the topic of wireless and remote areas:  Oh yeah, it's WAY easier to roll out.  I can't go out and rent a trencher for the week and drop fiber down my road, get a DS3 wired into the house, and tell my neighbors I've got an awesome ISP for them.  You can do that with wireless though.  Just mount an antenna on the roof and you're in business.  Want to expand?  You don't need government permission, just find a guy with a communications tower in the area.  Or a farmer with a silo that wants cheap internet access.

I agree with HTG that when you get the government involved things get messy and consumers suffer.  The problem you can't let every yahoo run a trencher down the road for fairly obvious reasons.  I'd be more than happy to let somebody trench through my front yard for better service but not everybody would be happy with that. So, government has to get involved.

What I find really amazing over the outrage of net neutrality being shot down, not on this board but elsewhere, are the cries of corporate oppression and censorship.  Wherever you are there is always at least 3 options for 'net access:  Dial-up, satelite, or getting wired up to a business class T1 or DS3, etc.  Honestly you can get to all the info you really NEED to be an informed citizen with dial-up.  When I pointed out getting a T1 and sharing it with neighbors a number of people decried that it was SO SLOW at only 1.5mbit.  That one boggles my mind because the 1st time I got on a T1 was freaking magic awesome fast super speed.  Sure, you can't share that with 4 neighbors all streaming from NetFlix but if you only want to use it to route around the "censorship" thing it should be plenty fast.  Hell, the first broadband I had in the home was 384k and thought I'd died and gone to Heaven.

[taurusowner]

Your phone calls go out over somebody else's equipment.  Mind if they listen in?

When you use a credit card, it goes over their equipment again.  Guess you don't care if they use the number for whatever they want.

Is that in the contract they signed with me?  If yes, I'll go somewhere else. The glory of capitalism is that if one company won't give me what I want, another company will be more than happy to in order to draw me away.

[Nitrogen]

Your phone calls go out over somebody else's equipment.  Mind if they listen in?

When you use a credit card, it goes over their equipment again.  Guess you don't care if they use the number for whatever they want.

The answer to this in Encryption.
Still, I think the premise is sound.  Every rule has an exception, and I think this is a valid one to libertarianism.  If a group wants immunity as a common carrier, they should carry traffic without exception.

The better thing for comcast to do is to offer BW limits to their plans, instead of calling them unlimited.  If you realy want to transfer 500gb/mo, pay extra for it.

[Nitrogen]

Is that in the contract they signed with me?  If yes, I'll go somewhere else. The glory of capitalism is that if one company won't give me what I want, another company will be more than happy to in order to draw me away.

While your premise is sound, in many places, telecommunications providers are natural monopolies, so this isn't always sound.

[RevDisk]

I'm in agreement as well. Does anyone seriously know what this supposed "net neutrality" is (in the real world, not in the "free love" and "free internet" world?

There is nothing "neutral" about the fracking incompetent, corrupt, over reaching, power hungry, soul eating, mindless government bureaucrats taking over the flippin' internet!

Read the bill before you sign it.

Sigh.  There is no "net neutrality" legislation.  The gist of the reality is that Comcast wants to break the law and receive immunity through misrepresentation.  This is actually only mildly related to net neutrality.

Alright, let me try to make this real simple.  If you are paid to carry a kilo of cocaine, even though you are not the owner nor the intended recipient, you're still going to jail for possession and distribution.   Unless you are a common carrier.  Being a common carrier means you transport goods or information without knowing what it is, and thus enjoy immunity from the contents.  FedEx will not be busted by the feds for unknowingly shipping a kilo of cocaine.  Verizon will not be busted for transporting illegal porn, pirated software, pre-release copies of movies, etc.

They are solely immune because they are common carriers, and no other reason.  Because it is unreasonable and undesirable for them to inspect every package. 

In short, Comcast wants to inspect your traffic (deep packet inspection), alter your information (via forgery) and control your access.  That is perfectly fine, if a court says it's legal (which they probably would).  However, they would no longer conform to the definition of a common carrier.  Which is completely fine and legal.  You do not NEED to be a common carrier.  It is a legal status under the law with some specific protections, nothing more.  If Comcast want to wiretap, forge, extort, blackmail, etc (which they have stated as their intention, stripped to bare definitions and removing the PR speak), it is all perfectly legal so long as the customer consents.   

However, under no sane definition of the law are they still a common carrier.   I don't care whether you agree or disagree with their actions.  They are a corporation and solely obligated to following the law and answering to their shareholders.  There is no law stating that they MUST be common carriers, and no one other than their shareholders can force them to be one. 

That said, if they are not a common carrier, they are obviously not entitled to common carrier status and thus their civil and criminal immunity would need to be stripped. 

Problem is, Comcast wants to keep their common carrier status without being a common carrier.  FCC is stupidly trying to make this a net neutrality issue, when it should not be.  Simply enforce the appropriate definition.

If Comcast wants to act as a noncommon carrier, that's fine.  The flip side is they become liable for everything that crosses their network.  As they apparently wish to be.  You cannot have your cake and eat it too.  Either you are a common carrier, or you are not.  It's binary.  Comcast needs to pick one and move on.  Instead, they will waste our tax dollars trying to retain civil/criminal immunity when they no longer are eligible to it due to their own choice.

[tyme]

Isn't it also their common carrier status that leads municipalities to grant them monopolies on providing copper/fiber service?

[mtnbkr]

Is that in the contract they signed with me?  If yes, I'll go somewhere else.

The things Comcast wants to do are not in their contract.  They want to modify the terms after the fact and without documenting them.

The answer to this in Encryption

I must be talking to a wall.  I've said multiple times Comcast dicked around with my ENCRYPTED traffic.  They couldn't read or modify it, so they blocked it for BS reasons.

The better thing for comcast to do is to offer BW limits to their plans, instead of calling them unlimited.  If you realy want to transfer 500gb/mo, pay extra for it.

Yup.  If the volume is really the issue, then charge for it.  Don't screw with the traffic. 

Chris

[mtnbkr]

FCC is stupidly trying to make this a net neutrality issue, when it should not be.  Simply enforce the appropriate definition.

I don't know if I'd call it stupid.  Net Neutrality is important and this presented them with a possible vehicle to pursue it.  Plus, I think most people are better equipped to understand the Neutrality issue than the privacy issue.

My wife doesn't understand how they can look into packets, but she does understand that they might want to control her access to certain websites.

Chris

[sanglant]

very over simplified way to help people understand how the net really works

you want to see a page you click a link
skip a few steps
your computer sends a postcard to the server
the server sends some postcards back to your comp, if some are shredded your comp sends a postcard saying 3 8 and 12 were missing and the server sends 3 8 and 12 again
your computer puts them all together and displays the page.

 

so the ISP has te read part of the postcard(address) but not the whole thing.
anybody have a better way?(to explain this, i never was good at this stuff )