Net Neutrality impact on content delivery

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by EastFlatbush

The ISPs have been trying to go after Big Tech because these companies have been a drain on their resources forever and been passing the costs onto their consumers.

Content providers are not the customer of the ISP, you are. Under NN the ISP can charge you whatever the hell they want and be fully compensated for the resources you consume. The only caveat to that is they have to charge you equally, if they are charging by the byte it will cost the same for one byte of data regardless of the source. What part of that is not understood?

[fastninja500]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

Content providers are not the customer of the ISP, you are.

The content providers are also customers of the ISP.
Google, Netflix, among others, pay the ISPs to put their own Content Delivery Network (CDN) within the ISP's networks. It works great for everyone: the content provider, the ISP and the consumer.
Solved by business. Not gov't.


That aside, as I've said before, the biggest problem is the lack of competition for the "last mile".
NN is a red herring. It actually protects the dominant ISPs by focusing everyone's attention on "how can we ensure that they don't abuse their monopolies too much."

If we let the ISPs abuse their monopolistic position, they eventually will.
Good! Give them more rope to hang themselves.
Eventually, there will be an overwhelming demand for "competition for the last mile".
Which will break up the dominant ISPs hold on the last mile.

There are lessons to be learned from the AT&T Divestiture?
Service was bad. They abused their monopolistic position.
When everyone had had enough of the abuse, they got broken up.
(I remember those days clearly. I was a fresh grad, working at my first Telecommunications job, at MCI.)
Result: A boom in Telecommunications.

But that's just my opinion.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by fastninja500

The content providers are also customers of the ISP.
Google, Netflix, among others, pay the ISPs to put their own Content Delivery Network (CDN) within the ISP's networks. It works great for everyone: the content provider, the ISP and the consumer.
Solved by business. Not gov't.

And your point is what? As long as the ISP is not hindering access to someone else's CDN they are in the clear.

Eventually, there will be an overwhelming demand for "competition for the last mile".
Which will break up the dominant ISPs hold on the last mile.

There is areas of this country that do not even have broadband access and to expect competition in areas that are minimally profitable is a pipe dream.

There are lessons to be learned from the AT&T Divestiture?
Service was bad. They abused their monopolistic position.
When everyone had had enough of the abuse, they got broken up.

Think about this for a minute... What is the fundamental thing that made this work?

[fastninja500]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

And your point is what? As long as the ISP is not hindering access to someone else's CDN they are in the clear.

Just going for accuracy regarding your previous statement - The content providers too are really large and important customers of the ISP. You previously said:

Originally Posted by thecoalman

Content providers are not the customer of the ISP, you are.

Originally Posted by thecoalman

There is areas of this country that do not even have broadband access and to expect competition in areas that are minimally profitable is a pipe dream.

You don't have to mis-direct - I didn't specifically refer to areas of the country that don't have don't have broadband access.
But competition will benefit those areas that do have broadband access. That was the point.

Originally Posted by thecoalman

Think about this for a minute... What is the fundamental thing that made this work?

Supply and Demand. Competition. Take your pick.


Like I said: we can agree to disagree.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by fastninja500

But competition will benefit those areas that do have broadband access. That was the point.

The reason those areas do not have broadband is because the infrastructure costs cannot be justified, for many of them it will never be justified unless it's some type of small scale wireless or satellite. The same thing applies to many areas that only have one provider., it may be profitable for one company but two will cut each other throats. e.g. If you have small town with one supermarket some other company coming in and building another one is a very risky investment that is unlikely to return a profit.

Supply and Demand. Competition. Take your pick.

The fundamental thing that made that possible is they are required to carry the phone traffic of other companies.

The same thing applies in electric markets where you can choose who is generating the power. Here in PA you can choose to buy power from many different companies. That market only exists because the distributor is required to carry the power of other companies. Bills are itemized here, one for power distribution and one for the power generator, the cost charged for distribution is the same regardless of who you choose for generation.


Both of these examples where competition was introduced into a marketplace where none previously existed are the same exact thing as NN and never would have worked otherwise.