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Old 11-10-2014, 01:32 PM
 
Location: Arizona
13,778 posts, read 9,636,577 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by prosopis View Post
Likewise, this has actually been a very enjoyable discussion - a rarity in the politics forum!



I think this gets back to the differences I alluded to earlier. In the 1950's, it was all broadcast airwaves. Multiple companies provided TV's for sale, and if you didn't like yours you could go buy a different one. Multiple companies could provide content by putting up a transmission station, and you could switch between them. All the government did was ensure that they didn't walk over each other by broadcasting at the same frequencies.

The difference here is that the means of transmission is actually owned by someone - your ISP. "The internet" is not, as far as I know, a network built and maintained by the government - its made up of lots of networks owned by lots of different entities. That is not to say that the government should not be expected to provide some uniformity in standards used, I would just prefer to see a lot more competition than regulation.
And therein lies the whole issue. It is in the provider's best financial interest to stifle competition rather than foster it.
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Old 11-10-2014, 01:37 PM
 
1,152 posts, read 1,273,672 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mohawkx View Post
And therein lies the whole issue. It is in the provider's best financial interest to stifle competition rather than foster it.
Ah yes, that is it right there. But isn't treating them as an officially sanctioned monopoly not really addressing this problem?

Those edits I added probably cross posted with your reply. But won't it all become a moot point if the dish guys can get into the act? Or if AT&T or whoever can get enough fiber optic VDSL to compete with cable speeds?

Instead of saying "these are utilities", perhaps the government should be using anti-trust laws that are close to a century old to prevent cable companies from snapping up the competition and keeping their monopoly.

EDIT:

Free markets do sometimes produce monopolies, when luck, drive, and conditions grossly favor one company over all the others. In such a case, that company does seek to shut down the freedom of the market - and in such cases government regulation can seek to restore the free market rather than limit it. Anti-trust laws seem to me to do just this. Public regulatory boards are better suited for power utilities and such - because there are really no other options than the wires connected to your house, and likely will never be for the kind of power needed to run everything.

Communications, however, will probably go fully wireless within my lifetime, if not much sooner. Seems to me that the trick is going to be keeping the big rich boys in the ISP market from squashing competition by buying it up and keeping their monopoly on your ISP spending.
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Old 11-10-2014, 01:37 PM
 
Location: Stasis
15,823 posts, read 12,429,091 times
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Republicans and their knee jerk reaction to anything Obama says are cutting of their noses to spite their face.

Cutting off the nose to spite the face - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Old 11-10-2014, 01:40 PM
 
46,887 posts, read 25,845,533 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by prosopis View Post
Well one of us seems to be very confused, and that could well be me. If net neutrality has been the order of the day up til now, how come netflix is paying more for their connection than you are?
Because they move much more traffic than I do.


Quote:
I suspect its because net neutrality has a very specific meaning, one that politicians can't grasp. Net neutrality has been the order of the day until now in regards to content neutral speed, not bandwidth neutral. As they're discussing it now, that distinction seems to get lost.
Bingo. That's a pretty good summarization right there.

Quote:
However, there is a good argument to be made for continued content neutrality.
I couldn't possibly agree more.

Quote:
Of course the government would have to regulate it, there is no one else to do so. I'm just not comfortable with how they are talking about doing it. Seems like there may be better ways than just saying "Its a utility". I think a lot of people are overlooking some of the unintended consequences that could come from this - and no, none of those are the FCC shutting down Fox
The utility label is a metaphor, and it does break down eventually - but as a figure, it works pretty well.
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Old 11-10-2014, 01:42 PM
 
34,274 posts, read 19,305,051 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by prosopis View Post
On the other hand, if the dish networks can actually get to the point of providing internet as well as cable does, this will all become a moot point.

Uhmmm actually several do. DirectTv has a internet capable dish, I used one for a while. Its has issues however, with large levels of latency, and throttling.
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Old 11-10-2014, 01:43 PM
 
46,887 posts, read 25,845,533 times
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Originally Posted by renault View Post
A writer for the American Enterprise Institute worships at the altar of big business? Surely it isn't so.
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Old 11-10-2014, 01:46 PM
 
34,274 posts, read 19,305,051 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by prosopis View Post
Well one of us seems to be very confused, and that could well be me. If net neutrality has been the order of the day up til now, how come netflix is paying more for their connection than you are? I suspect its because net neutrality has a very specific meaning, one that politicians can't grasp. Net neutrality has been the order of the day until now in regards to content neutral speed, not bandwidth neutral. As they're discussing it now, that distinction seems to get lost.
Actually net neutrality was the order of the day until recently when the FCC lost a court case about it, and the companies started to degrade service to netflix and others til they paid for priority. At the same time the companies have denied it as well. Seriously....while receiving money to improve the performance of netflix for example, they have denied it as well. Its truly mind boggling how they are out and out lying.
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Old 11-10-2014, 01:50 PM
 
Location: Someplace Wonderful
5,177 posts, read 4,776,594 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by prosopis View Post
Yeah, I know. The point was they can only control their competitor's speed if their competitor is using their network hardware. Cox providing cable tv and netflix streaming for example - their incentive is to slow down netflix so that you will watch their cable content instead.

But if you have two competing ISP's one cannot slow down the other one, and consumers can say "I'm going to dump that slow cable and get DSL" if both are available. Years ago (as you probably well know) it seemed to go the other way - dump DSL for the faster cable connection. AFAIK, cable now has more or less a monopoly on urban areas - its only the sticks where we still use DSL.
No no no no no no no ...Of course one ISP can control what another ISP sends. It is called "hot potato" routing, and has always been used by the isp's. You keep your own customers on your own network as long as you can, and you offload competitor data to some other network as soon as possible. THE most important job of an ISP senior network engineer is to tweek the BGP network to do exactly that!

I disagree about the cable versus DSL and urban versus rural. I do not have data on either. Do you? I'm just going by anecdotal information.

Quote:
Originally Posted by prosopis View Post
THAT is why this comes up now, not because there's the need to regulate this as a utility, but because the somewhat free market produced localized monopolization.
Disagree. There are many who want the internet to remain how it has been for three decades. Government wants to pretend they are protecting us end users, but they are lying. The ISP's, however, are merely trying to seek government assistance to stuff more money into their pockets.
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Old 11-10-2014, 01:50 PM
 
Location: Chicagoland
41,325 posts, read 44,865,163 times
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These radical socialists just won't give up, will they? The government does not need to intrude on internet.

Cruz:
Quote:
"Net Neutrality" is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government.
Exactly right.
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Old 11-10-2014, 01:51 PM
 
1,152 posts, read 1,273,672 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by greywar View Post
Uhmmm actually several do. DirectTv has a internet capable dish, I used one for a while. Its has issues however, with large levels of latency, and throttling.
Yeah, I've had friends that tried it, since they all get their TV through the dishes out in rural podunk where I live. They all end up going back to the phone company's DSL though, as it's quite good and those dish systems are buggy still.

I don't know our DSL's actual standard, but they did put in fiber optic to the local switches a few years ago and from then to just a year or so back it was indistinguishable from cable internet. Lately everything seems slower though, maybe 10% slower at home and 50% slower at work (different ISP at work).
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