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Author Topic: Net Neutrality  (Read 17816 times)

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« Reply #50 on: December 16, 2017, 17:31 »
+1
Again, net neutrality is not an issue. Lack of competition is.

Net neutrality is the issue as the new regulations are just a way of stifling competition (and many other things).

No. You are mixing the cause with the effect.
You need net neutrality because other regulations killed the competition favoring geographical monopolies.
Do away with regulations, stimulate competition and net neutrality will be obsolete.

I have a similar example from Telecom.
EU struggled for years to eliminate the abusive roaming charges between EU members.
In US, T-Mobile did exactly that (and even more), without any governmental mandate, more than one year ahead of EU.
I am in Iceland right now, debating with you without extra data costs. I can SMS for free and calls back home are only 20 cents/minute. I can read my emails, use google navigation or check my microstock sales for free and without being afraid of exceeding some quota.

No government asked T-Mobile to do that, they did it only to differentiate themselves from the old school competitors.

If only we could have 3 or 4 ISPs to choose from, Net Neutrality will become obsolete (for at least one of them), the same way abusive roaming charges became obsolete for T-Mobile.
« Last Edit: December 16, 2017, 17:46 by Zero Talent »


« Reply #51 on: December 16, 2017, 18:38 »
0
The internet as you know it is not going anywhere, I hate all this fear mongering! The less the govt. is involved in business the better! Business will provide what the people demand. If anything this helps keep the internet more free and open. After all it was fine up until 2015 when the law was passed! Where was all the screaming about this in 2014??

RAW

« Reply #52 on: December 16, 2017, 19:49 »
+2
The internet as you know it is not going anywhere, I hate all this fear mongering! The less the govt. is involved in business the better! Business will provide what the people demand. If anything this helps keep the internet more free and open. After all it was fine up until 2015 when the law was passed! Where was all the screaming about this in 2014??

That is not true.

The law was past in 2015 to protect the internet. Up until that point it was not needed as there were no plans to change things.

Why do you think Comcast/Verizon have spent so much money trying to overturn the protections?

« Reply #53 on: December 16, 2017, 20:23 »
0
Nothing stopped them in 2013 or 2014. Your internet will be just fine, just wait and see!!

namussi

« Reply #54 on: December 16, 2017, 21:32 »
+1

I have a similar example from Telecom.
EU struggled for years to eliminate the abusive roaming charges between EU members.
In US, T-Mobile did exactly that (and even more), without any governmental mandate, more than one year ahead of EU.
I

They're not really the same, are they?

You are comparing one company operating in one country, with an area with dozens of companies, perhaps hundreds, operating in 28 countries.

(And don't forget that T-Mobile is a German company)

RAW

« Reply #55 on: December 16, 2017, 22:24 »
+5
Nothing stopped them in 2013 or 2014. Your internet will be just fine, just wait and see!!

Net Neutrality means that 1GB of data from Joe Blow should be treated the same as 1GB of data from Netflix.

Comcast/Verizon/AT&T do not want that. That is why they have spent $572 million lobying to remove the 'neutrality'.

Do you really think that they've spent $572 million dollars to make the internet more competitive and open?

« Reply #56 on: December 17, 2017, 01:16 »
0

Net Neutrality means that 1GB of data from Joe Blow should be treated the same as 1GB of data from Netflix.

Comcast/Verizon/AT&T do not want that. That is why they have spent $572 million lobying to remove the 'neutrality'.

Do you really think that they've spent $572 million dollars to make the internet more competitive and open?

NetFlix accounts for 36.5% of all traffic in the US at its peak. Combined with YouTube, it makes up 50% of the internet traffic in the United States.

ISPs constantly upgrade to handle these 2 streaming services. I'm talking about billions of dollars in infrastructure upgrades because of 2 companies. That's a lot of money spent, all the while enriching NetFlix and Google. And some of that upgrade cost has already been passed on to the consumer. It's a bit unfair to look from the outside and ask ISPs who spent billions for 2 companies to treat all websites the same way.

If 2 companies uses 50% of the highway traffic in the US, wouldn't it be fair to ask them to pay a higher tax? Net Neutrality may sound noble, because everything is treated equally, but 2 websites using 50% of the traffic compared to the millions and millions of websites out there are not very equal.
« Last Edit: December 17, 2017, 02:04 by Minsc »

« Reply #57 on: December 17, 2017, 03:23 »
0

I have a similar example from Telecom.
EU struggled for years to eliminate the abusive roaming charges between EU members.
In US, T-Mobile did exactly that (and even more), without any governmental mandate, more than one year ahead of EU.
I

They're not really the same, are they?

You are comparing one company operating in one country, with an area with dozens of companies, perhaps hundreds, operating in 28 countries.

(And don't forget that T-Mobile is a German company)

In US, T-Mobile obeys American laws. And no law forced them to do what is definitely very good for consumers. Competition forced them to do that.

As I said, give me 3 or 4 competing ISPs to choose from (instead of only 1) and NN will not matter anymore.

namussi

« Reply #58 on: December 17, 2017, 06:11 »
+1

I have a similar example from Telecom.
EU struggled for years to eliminate the abusive roaming charges between EU members.
In US, T-Mobile did exactly that (and even more), without any governmental mandate, more than one year ahead of EU.
I

They're not really the same, are they?

You are comparing one company operating in one country, with an area with dozens of companies, perhaps hundreds, operating in 28 countries.

(And don't forget that T-Mobile is a German company)

In US, T-Mobile obeys American laws. And no law forced them to do what is definitely very good for consumers. Competition forced them to do that.

As I said, give me 3 or 4 competing ISPs to choose from (instead of only 1) and NN will not matter anymore.

That doesn't really address my point.

niktol

« Reply #59 on: December 17, 2017, 06:51 »
0

ISPs constantly upgrade to handle these 2 streaming services. I'm talking about billions of dollars in infrastructure upgrades because of 2 companies. That's a lot of money spent, all the while enriching NetFlix and Google. And some of that upgrade cost has already been passed on to the consumer. It's a bit unfair to look from the outside and ask ISPs who spent billions for 2 companies to treat all websites the same way.



It would be more "free-market"-like to charge customers per transferred Gig. Price rather than rationing.

« Reply #60 on: December 17, 2017, 07:46 »
0
Supporters of net neutrality say that it protected everyday Americans from having their internet slowed down or their favorite websites blocked by a greedy, evil internet service provider. Others have said net neutrality made sure free speech wasnt stifled by ISPs. These claims are nothing more than myths.

Market forces already protected consumers, because if an ISP started deliberately slowing down peoples favorite websites and streaming services, or putting an end to free speech, consumers would simply switch to a different ISP.

No internet service provider wants to be known for having slow service or being anti-free-speech, so theres nothing for consumers to worry about.

Further, if a rogue ISP does decide to start unjustly penalizing a business or group of consumers, the Federal Trade Commission and FCC will still be able to stop these actions through their other regulatory powers.

Perhaps most importantly, if net neutrality was so important, why is it that the internet was able to grow and operate so successfully from its creation all the way until 2015 without any of these dire problems?

Make no mistake about it, net neutrality wasnt really about paid prioritization or ensuring internet fairness. The truth is that net neutrality was passed by the left-wing Obama administration to give more power over the internet to the federal government.

« Reply #61 on: December 17, 2017, 07:58 »
0

I have a similar example from Telecom.
EU struggled for years to eliminate the abusive roaming charges between EU members.
In US, T-Mobile did exactly that (and even more), without any governmental mandate, more than one year ahead of EU.
I

They're not really the same, are they?

You are comparing one company operating in one country, with an area with dozens of companies, perhaps hundreds, operating in 28 countries.

(And don't forget that T-Mobile is a German company)

In US, T-Mobile obeys American laws. And no law forced them to do what is definitely very good for consumers. Competition forced them to do that.

As I said, give me 3 or 4 competing ISPs to choose from (instead of only 1) and NN will not matter anymore.

That doesn't really address my point.

Instead, that is really addressing the point of this topic.

niktol

« Reply #62 on: December 17, 2017, 08:03 »
+1
consumers would simply switch to a different ISP.


Indeed. All I need is a 28K modem.

« Reply #63 on: December 17, 2017, 08:04 »
+5

Market forces already protected consumers, because if an ISP started deliberately slowing down peoples favorite websites and streaming services, or putting an end to free speech, consumers would simply switch to a different ISP.

Unfortunately this is not the case. As I stated already twice, 46% of Americans have access to only 1 (one) ISP. I'm one of them.
I would love to switch but I'm stuck and forced to swallow a price increase every year.

The government should fix first the lack of competition and then only abolish NN.

But they put the cart before the horse!
« Last Edit: December 17, 2017, 08:52 by Zero Talent »

« Reply #64 on: December 17, 2017, 10:41 »
0

Net Neutrality means that 1GB of data from Joe Blow should be treated the same as 1GB of data from Netflix.

Comcast/Verizon/AT&T do not want that. That is why they have spent $572 million lobying to remove the 'neutrality'.

Do you really think that they've spent $572 million dollars to make the internet more competitive and open?

NetFlix accounts for 36.5% of all traffic in the US at its peak. Combined with YouTube, it makes up 50% of the internet traffic in the United States.

ISPs constantly upgrade to handle these 2 streaming services. I'm talking about billions of dollars in infrastructure upgrades because of 2 companies. That's a lot of money spent, all the while enriching NetFlix and Google. And some of that upgrade cost has already been passed on to the consumer. It's a bit unfair to look from the outside and ask ISPs who spent billions for 2 companies to treat all websites the same way.

If 2 companies uses 50% of the highway traffic in the US, wouldn't it be fair to ask them to pay a higher tax? Net Neutrality may sound noble, because everything is treated equally, but 2 websites using 50% of the traffic compared to the millions and millions of websites out there are not very equal.

It would all sound fine if the ISPs were giving internet access for free, but they ain't. If it weren't for the Google, Netflix and other companies and similar internet services they wouldn't have that much paying customers.
Should they just collect customer's money and never invest in infrastructure upgrades?
If they can't handle it then they can close their doors, I'm sure there are a lot of companies just waiting to take their place. But I'm sure they can handle it just alright, don't tell me they are broke and need customer's help, because they are either going to charge customers for Google and Netflix traffic or they are going to charge those companies which will in return raise their prices or stop being free.
I'm sure they want to adopt the scheme used by hardware companies, charging premium and raising prices with every new generation of tech while keeping the old tech at the same price. If it only reflected in their empoyees paychecks it would be great, be those are going to remain the same and money will go elsewhere, but surely not to infrastructure upgrades as they would like us to think.   

 

« Last Edit: December 17, 2017, 10:44 by qunamax »

RAW

« Reply #65 on: December 17, 2017, 14:00 »
+3
Supporters of net neutrality say that it protected everyday Americans from having their internet slowed down or their favorite websites blocked by a greedy, evil internet service provider. Others have said net neutrality made sure free speech wasnt stifled by ISPs. These claims are nothing more than myths.

Market forces already protected consumers, because if an ISP started deliberately slowing down peoples favorite websites and streaming services, or putting an end to free speech, consumers would simply switch to a different ISP.

That's just nuts.

There is no ISP competition in the US (I have the choice of one provider - and they are lousy).

The new law gives massive powers to Comcast/Verizon and there is no oversight. We are left hoping that the new corporate super powers will do the right thing (and when has that ever happened before).

They now have the power to come after anyone (not just Neflix) that makes a living online and expect their cut.

There will soon be an eCommerce tier along with a Netflix tier, an Amazon tier, a Social Media tier etc. They are going to spit the internet into packages and charge accordingly.

. . . and if you want to upload videos to Shutterstock you will have to buy the Upload Package.

RAW

« Reply #66 on: December 17, 2017, 14:24 »
+3
It's obvious from some of the posts in this thread that several of you are Republicans so I won't bother mentioning how much net neutrality helps low income families not just with education but also healthcare.


Shelma1

  • stockcoalition.org
« Reply #67 on: December 17, 2017, 17:24 »
+1
Supporters of net neutrality say that it protected everyday Americans from having their internet slowed down or their favorite websites blocked by a greedy, evil internet service provider. Others have said net neutrality made sure free speech wasnt stifled by ISPs. These claims are nothing more than myths.

Market forces already protected consumers, because if an ISP started deliberately slowing down peoples favorite websites and streaming services, or putting an end to free speech, consumers would simply switch to a different ISP.

That's just nuts.

There is no ISP competition in the US (I have the choice of one provider - and they are lousy).

The new law gives massive powers to Comcast/Verizon and there is no oversight. We are left hoping that the new corporate super powers will do the right thing (and when has that ever happened before).

They now have the power to come after anyone (not just Neflix) that makes a living online and expect their cut.

There will soon be an eCommerce tier along with a Netflix tier, an Amazon tier, a Social Media tier etc. They are going to spit the internet into packages and charge accordingly.

. . . and if you want to upload videos to Shutterstock you will have to buy the Upload Package.

Really. Comcast has a monopoly where I live...there is no other choice. And they're probably the worst company ever. I haven't had cable in years because their customer service is so awful, though I'm forced to use them as my ISP (and then I also have to pay to use my iphone as a wireless hotspot because Comcast service goes down so often).

A large group of residents in a retirement community near here actually sued them for throttling service a few years ago.
« Last Edit: December 17, 2017, 17:35 by Shelma1 »

« Reply #68 on: December 17, 2017, 17:33 »
+1
It's obvious from some of the posts in this thread that several of you are Republicans so I won't bother mentioning how much net neutrality helps low income families not just with education but also healthcare.
Things are not as black and white as you think.
For the record, I'm registered independent and I voted democrats in the past elections.
Yet I see no problem in abolishing NN as long as it is done when competition is strong enough to protect consumers. And I want to see even more regulations abolished to reach that level of competition.
« Last Edit: December 17, 2017, 18:00 by Zero Talent »

« Reply #69 on: December 17, 2017, 19:05 »
0
It's obvious from some of the posts in this thread that several of you are Republicans so I won't bother mentioning how much net neutrality helps low income families not just with education but also healthcare.
Things are not as black and white as you think.
For the record, I'm registered independent and I voted democrats in the past elections.
Yet I see no problem in abolishing NN as long as it is done when competition is strong enough to protect consumers. And I want to see even more regulations abolished to reach that level of competition.

Registered republican. Voted Independant ... I would have voted for the bern if dems hadn't handed the nomination to that hag. I'm in a red state so it really doesn't matter.

namussi

« Reply #70 on: December 17, 2017, 20:29 »
0

I have a similar example from Telecom.
EU struggled for years to eliminate the abusive roaming charges between EU members.
In US, T-Mobile did exactly that (and even more), without any governmental mandate, more than one year ahead of EU.
I

They're not really the same, are they?

You are comparing one company operating in one country, with an area with dozens of companies, perhaps hundreds, operating in 28 countries.

(And don't forget that T-Mobile is a German company)

In US, T-Mobile obeys American laws. And no law forced them to do what is definitely very good for consumers. Competition forced them to do that.

As I said, give me 3 or 4 competing ISPs to choose from (instead of only 1) and NN will not matter anymore.

That doesn't really address my point.

Instead, that is really addressing the point of this topic.

I guess I win this skirmish then.

« Reply #71 on: December 17, 2017, 20:43 »
0
Come on back when you have no internet service and we will chat again. My speed is the same now as it was in 2010 so Net Neutrality did nothing for me!

« Reply #72 on: December 17, 2017, 21:09 »
0
It's obvious from some of the posts in this thread that several of you are Republicans so I won't bother mentioning how much net neutrality helps low income families not just with education but also healthcare.

What is obvious is that you're uninformed about the whole NN situation. You're making assumptions because people are disagreeing with you. The repeal of NN will not affect as much as you think it does. The internet was fine before 2015 and it will be fine after 2017. There will be no packaged deals, no censoring of information...that's just misinformation and fear-mongering spread by Google's PR arm and people ate it up.

The whole point of NN was to make it easy for companies like NetFlix, Google, Amazon and other giant companies to destroy the competition. It doesn't affect healthcare, it doesn't affect low income families (unless they spend the whole day watching NetFlix at 4K) , it doesn't affect startups and it won't affect 99.99% of the websites out there. The reason why NN came into existence was because of a large lobbying effort by large internet companies to maintain the status quo. It's corporate socialism at the expense of other companies and consumers.

In 2014 (and previous years), the ISPs throttled NetFlix not because they're evil, but because they can't handle the amount of traffic going through their networks. NN forced ISPs to treat all traffic the same at the expense of the ISPs and consumers. ISPs pass their infrastructure upgrade cost to the consumers on their monthly plans. You may think you are getting a benefit, but you're actually paying more because of NN. If NetFlix paid more for their massive amount of traffic, there is a decent chance our monthly internet bills would have been lower over the years.

« Last Edit: December 17, 2017, 22:16 by Minsc »

namussi

« Reply #73 on: December 17, 2017, 22:08 »
0
It's obvious from some of the posts in this thread that several of you are Republicans so I won't bother mentioning how much net neutrality helps low income families not just with education but also healthcare.

Yes, you didn't mention it. Except, of course, you did.

« Reply #74 on: December 18, 2017, 08:36 »
+2

In 2014 (and previous years), the ISPs throttled NetFlix not because they're evil, but because they can't handle the amount of traffic going through their networks. NN forced ISPs to treat all traffic the same at the expense of the ISPs and consumers. ISPs pass their infrastructure upgrade cost to the consumers on their monthly plans. You may think you are getting a benefit, but you're actually paying more because of NN. If NetFlix paid more for their massive amount of traffic, there is a decent chance our monthly internet bills would have been lower over the years.

They throttled Netflix not because they're evil, indeed, but because being in a monopolistic situation, they had no incentive to upgrade their network.
If this situation doesn't change, without NN, they will charge Netflix extra or start throttling again. Since they have no competition to be concerned with, they will have no incentive to lower their fees, to upgrade their network nor to improve their internal processes and become more efficient. Why would they do that?
Because they are nice? Don't be naive!

Only competition will lower our fees and insure the quality we expect. Obviously, no regulation will ever be able to "compete with competition" and compensate enough the lack of it.

Moreover, more competition means the traffic will be split over multiple networks, therefore less congestion for consumers. More competition is in fact better than those required network upgrades you considered too expensive to be carried out by a single, lazy and arrogant, monopolistic ISP.

I would rather see Netflix absorbing a part of these extra costs, since there is much stronger competition on the content provider side.
Logically this can impact the content quality Netflix is able to provide today, less movies from third parties and less Netflix originals.

Overall, without competition among ISPs, consumers are losing with or without NN, so please don't avoid this side of the equation in your otherwise thorough justifications.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2017, 10:37 by Zero Talent »


 

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