Net Neutrality?? Someone pls Explain

With out getting into the political stuff, could someone please explain to me what this new FCC Net Neutrality thing means? I am just a normal user like a average person. I keep hearing different stories. One group says now I am going to love the internet, the next group says that its going to slow to a crawl and get taxed. Mostly, I don't believe the news. NO POLITICS please. Does anyone know yet just the facts. Pros & Cons for a average guy like me.

This is mostly a USA topic, but will or can affect the international folks too?

I guess, I didn't realize the internet wasn't already neutral.

For the most part, it is already neutral. But there were a number of providers looking to change that. Basically, ISPs wanted to be able to charge extra for premium speeds, or "fast lanes". Of course, since there is limited bandwidth available, this effectively means they will prioritize certain data, and slow other transmissions down. Definitely not a good thing. It would allow Comcast (for example) to promote its own digital content with high-speed streaming, while reducing the streaming rates of other companies like Amazon or Netflix.

The recent actions taken by the FCC are steps in the right direction...hopefully they will stand, and actually be enforced.

For a hilarious take on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU

See I thought the same thing, "it is already neutral". I guess Amazon & Netflix and Youtube chew up data? So this is designed to slow them down I guess. What worries me most is if they can regulate the content of a website. Like news, or Political and such.

One of the reasons I ask is Netflix. I use and love it. So I wonder if it will slow down their services?

Thank you for this thread and for the explanation - I've been wondering the same things about all this mess and have not been able to quite "get it". Now I do.

From everything read about he subject, the FCC doesn't want large companies to set up "Gucci lanes" for content providers. Youtube, Netflix and others use large amounts of bandwidth. What some ISP's are doing is to slow down content from the heavy hitters.

I believe that Netflix signed an agreement with a few of the high speed net suppliers so that they receive preferred treatment.

With the current FCC ruling, everyone is supposed to be treated equally which is going to slow down the service for the heavy hitters. (content providers)

The down side of throttling the net is that the ISP's aren't going to invest in higher speed services if they can't charge more for the service, they won't make the investment in new equipment.

For me living in Smallville USA, I have a choice of Comcast, and the local phone company DSL. The Phone company won't invest in fiber optics where I live since only a handful homes are going to receive the service.

Comcast for extended basic TV is almost $80 a month. I tried to get a package deal for phone, internet and TV and they blew off their scheduled installation time. During stormy weather the cable goes out and it's sometimes days before restoration. Can't imagine being without TV and internet at the same time.

I disagree that ISP will not make investment in new equipment. As long as there is demand, and there is a profit to be made, investments will be made. All the FCC did was to require ISP's to put forth a little effort. The secondary issue is that in most market, there isn't really a choice. DSL tops out at about 10mbps, and to get that you have to be just about next door to the exchange equipment. For most users the upper limit on DSL is something in the 3-5mbps range on the download, and about 750kbps on the uplink side. The FCC now defines broadband as 25mbps or faster.

Because of franchise agreements between cable companies and the municipalities, the local government generally has no interest in promoting competition (cable company pays a fee to the municipality for each service they connect within the municipal boundary). So if you want true broadband performance as the FCC now defines it , your choices are Cable or Sat. In a few places Verizon offers FiOS fiber optic service and competes with both. If they didn't think there was money to be made, I seriously doubt that Verizon would have spent a pile of money on the FiOS network. The top tier service from FiOS is now 500/500 mbps, and believe it or not, there are residential customers who have bought that service. Customers are in fact williing to pay for faster service. What they don't want, and what the FCC doesn't want is for the ISP to sell vitually all of its capacity to the 'heavy hitters', and leave the rest of the users only a small part of the capacity they are supposedly paying for. I.E having your 50 mbps service effectively degraded to 50kbps because all of the available bandwidth is being occupied by 'priority' traffic (i.e. netflix, amazon etc that have paid for priority). Net Neutraility is all about equal access to the bandwidth for all users.

ISP's aren't' going to make investments in higher speed networks unless they can charge more for the service.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/02/24/net-neutrality-what-is-it-guide/23237737/

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs...nderhanded-power-grab-is-bad-for-the-internet

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/3...y-rules-fcc-kicks-up-internet-storm-heres.htm

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opin...nternet-regulation-20150226-story.html#page=1

These are the first four articles that I found when searching for "what's actually in the Net Neutrality Act."


Where I previously lived the city regulated who could offer cable services and high speed internet. They the city required minority ownership, which dictated that United Artist Cable received the contract. Their service was bad on a good day. I used to keep a log when the service went out and deducted for the days with no service. United Artist was purchased by TCI, who in turn was purchased by Comcast. This was over a five or six year period of time.
My section of town in six years never got upgraded for high speed internet. It was DSL, satellite, or 4G service from Clearwire.

I'm no longer a band width hog, but when I was, I used 75 gigs a month. The vast majority of my downloads were late night. I'd select the movies I wanted and let the computer run. By using a good down loader program I lost very little data.

While I don't agree with throttling, I do agree that if a content provider should be able to pay for faster speeds to provide customers with the service they are paying for. If all web traffic has to be treated equally, the ISP's have no reason to upgrade their systems. For a competitor to come into an new area is going to require a large infrastructure investment.

Many moons ago before deregulation of utilities, you never paid for distribution fees for gas or electric. Now you can pay almost as much per month in these fees as the product you are receiving.

The standard practice was that the "customer" was the consumer, and if the customer wanted faster download speeds, he or she had to pay for it. Fair enough. That paid for the infrastructure, everyone made a profit, and there were no complaints.

Then Comcast and others figured out that they could charge not only their customers who consumed content, but also those who produced content. None of the cost of the infrastructure changed, so what justifies charging people at both ends of the pipeline? Nothing... it's just a way to boost revenue. If there was any actual competition for broadband, that would be fine, and customers could go look for the best price. Unfortunately, as has been pointed out, there is no competition for broadband.

Personally, I say charge the consumer based on what they actually use. If you are downloading huge amounts of data, then pay accordingly. I just don't like having Comcast, Verizon, etc., charging selective tolls for data to pass though their lines, especially when they are also competitors in the content producing business.

300 pages, but the public has no access to the whole document. Just what they want to release.

ironhorse said:

300 pages, but the public has no access to the whole document. Just what they want to release.

Click to expand...

There is a Washington Post editorial discussing this....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...onspiracy-theory-brewing-over-net-neutrality/

the key detail might be that it is still being edited....

from the editorial: "As is typical for a final rule and order," said Kim Hart, an FCC spokeswoman, "the final document is not available until staff makes final edits, which must be cleared by each commissioner."

Steve K said:

There is a Washington Post editorial discussing this....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...onspiracy-theory-brewing-over-net-neutrality/

the key detail might be that it is still being edited....

from the editorial: "As is typical for a final rule and order," said Kim Hart, an FCC spokeswoman, "the final document is not available until staff makes final edits, which must be cleared by each commissioner."

Click to expand...

If they are still editing , why did they hold a vote? Sounds like another bill that got shoved down our collective throats.

The way it works now, the big content providers (Google, Netflix, Ebay, Amazon) pay huge amounts to their ISPs for very large data pipes. I recall seeing graphs with 10 gigabits per second at the Ebay network center.

What Comcast and the others wanted to do was to charge Google, Netflix et al money if YOU want to download something from them at more than a crawl. The step after that is to block or degrade services that compete with them or provides content that they disagree with.

The "Common Carrier" status puts several responsibilities on the broadband companies. As I recall from my classes, one of them is that they have to offer services without preference to anyone who asks. A taxi cab is a common carrier. They are not allowed to refuse to provide services to without cause.

I'm glad that they came to a decision before Comcast, Verizon and friends made it so that you HAD to pay for premium service if you wanted to stream video.

Dan

A friend of mine made the analogy that if net neutrality went away, that would be like your Homeoner's Association charging pizza delivery places to be able to deliver pizzas to your door -- despite the streets in the neighborhood still being subject to City maintenance.

Sure, maybe Domino's and Pizza Hut might be able to afford to pay the HOA for the privilege of delivering pizza in your neighborhood, but what about "Pizza Planet" or "Joe-Bob's Pizza"?

Alric Darconville, I sorta get your friends analogy. But, am I correct in my question here? Wouldn't it be more like the HO paid for and maintained the streets? My local internet provider is against it. They are saying they provide the fiber lines that the services use and therefor they should be able to do with as they please. At least thats the story I hear them giving in the local news broadcasts. My first thoughts were that if my service provider is against it and the govt is for it, then my bill will likely go up!
The example my "computer geek" friend gave me, was look at your internet bill, then look at your cell phone bill. See all those bogus charges on your cell phone bill. I looked, he is right!
I guess we have to wait and see what is actually in this thing to really know. I guess the whole thing seems kinda fishy to me.

Don't forget protections of "common carrier status." If a Pizza Hut or Domino's employee decided to rob you at gunpoint after their org paid the extortion *ahem* road tax (no, that's wrong too), uhh RICO FEE, then Pizza Hut, Domino's and the Homeowner's association are now liable for the actions of one disgruntled employee.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act

The idiot CEOs tend to overlook this. Money money money. Nevermind they're opening themselves up to a RICO arrest.

Common carrier means that your ISP is not liable if you did something illegal on the internet. All it takes is one illegal video viewed by one person (with money and lawyers) slipped into Youtube/etc and the ISP can be sued as well.

It's like how you can't sue AT&T for someone using an AT&T phone to do something bad. Common carrier.

I tell you, corporate CEO types really are very stupid. Apparently, big money blinds people.

Any bets the 300 pages are still being edited to try to counter RICO?

"Now let me make you an offer you can't refuse... or else."

Str8stroke said:

Alric Darconville, I sorta get your friends analogy. But, am I correct in my question here? Wouldn't it be more like the HO paid for and maintained the streets? My local internet provider is against it. They are saying they provide the fiber lines that the services use and therefor they should be able to do with as they please. At least thats the story I hear them giving in the local news broadcasts. My first thoughts were that if my service provider is against it and the govt is for it, then my bill will likely go up!

Click to expand...

Suppose your service provider decides to choke out all other traffic that doesn't pay their fee? So Netflix can stream their videos to their customers, but Grandma can't enter a webcam session with her grandkids, or if she does, the bandwidth is so limited that it might as well be done by smoke signals?

Or suppose you're the owner of "Pizza Sherpa" and you can't deliver pizza more than one slice at a time to your customers in the "Roaming Oaks" neighborhood unless you pay the neighborhood $500/mo?

The example my "computer geek" friend gave me, was look at your internet bill, then look at your cell phone bill. See all those bogus charges on your cell phone bill. I looked, he is right!

Click to expand...

One "bogus charge" is "regulatory charge recovery fee"-- the phone company is whining about having to meet the law regarding common carriers, so they throw it back at the consumer.

I guess we have to wait and see what is actually in this thing to really know. I guess the whole thing seems kinda fishy to me.

Click to expand...

"Wait and see"? By then, it's too late. Learn about it, and act on the knowledge, NOW. (And by "learn about it", probably you shouldn't listen to your computer geek friend.)

Not a very good analogy. Your local Domino's employs local people, and pays local property taxes. The Domino's drivers also pay licensing tag fees and motor fuel taxes.

Around most metropolitan regions today, the states have Gucci lanes on interstate highways. They charge for the limited access lane which is supposed to have less traffic than the regular lanes. Additionally the Gucci lanes charge higher rates depending on time of day. The Gucci lanes were paid for using both federal and state highway funds, not private funds.

Individuals that are paying for the premium services like movie streaming are already paying for the preferred treatment, because we all know that all costs are passed thru to the subscriber.

Look at your cell phone plan. They typically offer free nights and weekends. They do so because the number of calls being made is a lot smaller than high traffic times.

In my opinion, the real value of net neutrality lies in the protection of the free flow of information. Under some circumstances an ISP can exert extreme influence over a population. Here's an example.

Up to the early 1900's the newspapers determined what news you were able to hear about. They made and broke many politicians. They exposed or helped cover up many scandals. They sculpted laws and then manipulated what the public learned about the laws when it was time to vote. A person who owned all the newspapers was very powerful.

Along came radio, and guess who bought the radio stations? The same tycoons who owned the papers. Eventually laws, rules and regulations were created that limited how much of the "media" a single person/corporation could own in a geographic market. These protections held until the late 1990s. Newspapers argued that there were enough alternative sources of news (cable TV, Internet and radio) that there would be no harm if all 3 papers in San Francisco provided the same slanted news reports and editorials. They won that argument.

When it came radio's turn, the same argument was made. There was newspaper, broadcast TV, cable TV and the internet, so what did it matter if one company controlled most of the radio stations in one area. What did it matter if they controlled all the radio stations in half a state. Clear Channel radio (Now Iheart radio) owns most of the radio stations (and many TV stations) in the US. They won that argument.

So now we have a situation where one rich guy can own 100% of the newspapers, radio and TV stations in the whole state. Charter Communications and AT&T have even traded customers in order to get ownership of 100% of an area. But that's OK since you still have the internet and cable TV to balance it. You can still get your news from anywhere in the world. But that assumes the Cable TV providers and ISPs are neutral. There have been cases of broadband owners with an agenda or moral position who have blacklisted offending sites, TV shows and channels.

So that's why net neutrality is so important. When a single company can provide the movies, the TV and radio programming and also control what web sites you can access, they have a good chance of influencing what you buy and who you vote for.

Dan

I love the hyperbole around the paid prioritization that suggests investments in capacity for providers of speed- or latency-sensitive services automatically mean "slow lanes" for everything else ... because ISP's are both greedy and comically stupid like Scooby Doo villains.

The issue with home broadband is that it's engineered around the model of internet usage from the dialup days. User traffic is modeled around the "bursty" nature of dialup - at any given time a small percentage of users are using most of their pipe for a time span ranging from seconds to minutes. This allowed for a high rate of oversubscription of capacity - often on the level of 1000:1 or greater - at most levels of the network without adversely effecting performance the overwhelming majority of the time. It is this oversubscription and pattern of relatively light usage that has allowed for inexpensive home broadband relative to orders-of-magnitude more expensive dedicated lines with solid performance guarantees. This has also lead to much whinging and gnashing of teeth over the realities of home broadband's up to X bits per second which cannot make those guarantees for any large percentage of its userbase.

Presently, paid prioritization was meant to fund investments in edge capacity so that interested parties could connect close to customer points of presence. In the future as "over the top" video starts to become more and more common, there will need to be substantial enhancements to the network as sustained traffic starts to bump up against some of the hard limits over oversubscription. Initially this will be edge routers and gateway routers, where the solution will be to add more capacity via upgrades or new equipment that can be dropped in place. Ultimately the issue will spread to the more numerous last-mile terminators, networking topology, and customer premises equipment which will be a very expensive undertaking.

Netflix, which consumes an immense percentage of internet traffic in the United States, is at the heart of paid prioritization, has an extensive CDN (Content Delivery Network) to carry much of their traffic via private lines and publicly offered to fund interconnections at the edge with major ISP's (I do not believe that the full details of these offers were disclosed). While this would have addressed some of the immediate concerns around connections to core and distribution points for ISP's, it would not have addressed the far thornier long-term issues of bottlenecks at the access layer. When these negotiations did not go Netflix's way, they cried to the media and made it all out to be the big evil ISPs' fault; left out of the discussion was the fact that no small percentage of the fault lay with their CDN's and providing better core/distribution layer interconnects would not have been the cure to all that ails them. Also never discussed was this expectation that the ISP's should spend billions upgrading their networks so a single over-the-top provider could better reach customers - ideally without raising prices on anyone and surely not on passing some of this cost onto that providers' users.

idleprocess said:

I love the hyperbole around the paid prioritization that suggests investments in capacity for providers of speed- or latency-sensitive services automatically mean "slow lanes" for everything else ...

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It doesn't mean it will AUTOMATICALLY happen...but it has ALREADY happened. Comcast has deliberately slowed Netflix traffic (while not slowing their own content, surprise!). They had a very legitimate complaint, as far as I am concerned.

The point is that without codified net neutrality, this behavior is legal. Not every company everywhere, all the time, has to block or favor traffic for this to be a serious problem. I'd rather see net neutrality, and slightly higher fees, then to see prioritization of content that someone else deems appropriate.

Again, this would be far less important if we had competition. But given that almost everywhere in the USA, you have one, or maybe two ISPs to choose from, your choices are extremely limited, and if one company decides to throttle traffic, you may have nowhere else to go without completely giving up broadband. This is why the issue is so critical.