[ruffrey]

The real solution to the problem, as I see it, is not even Net Neutrality (though I strongly support Net Neutrality).

The solution is to break the monopolistic stranglehold on last-mile internet service.

If it were possible to have competition in the last-mile ISP space, then consumers could vote with their wallets and choose those ISPs who supported Net Neutrality.

An alternate partial solution would be to force companies breaking net neutrality to report it on their customer's bill.

[jimktrains2]

These are orthogonal issues. Net neutrality is important regardless of isp options. Not only on principle either, not everywhere will naturally have competition.

[orthecreedence]

I am a big supporter of municipal fiber/broadband as a means to provide enough market competition such that net neutrality regulation is no longer needed.

You bring up a great point though, even if 100 of the biggest cities have municipal internet infrastructure, there are still lots of areas that wouldn't be covered and could benefit from basic NN regulation.

I don't necessarily think the issues are orthogonal, but I do think basic "don't be a dick" ISP regulations should be in place.

[bassman9000]

These are orthogonal issues

They're not. If NN is a user sought feature, true competition will bring it.

E.g. a few years ago cell phone plans sucked in the US. TMobile started some real competition. The other big ones had to follow. Unlimited data plans, demanded ages ago, have been recently introduced.

[dominotw]

> not everywhere will naturally have competition.

Many rural areas have only one grocery store.

[Afforess]

And this is universally agreed to be a bad situation.[1] Do not play word games.

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/09/what-happene...

[dominotw]

I didn't say it wasn't bad. We aren't discussing good and bad. We are discussing a specific situation that requires govt intervention.

I am implying this is a equivalent situation where govt didn't create rules for grocery stores to call all brands of goods equally.

Also, that is not what a word game is.

[Afforess]

False dichotomies and appeal to the middle are absolutely types of word games. I am sick and tired of "moderate"-sounding weasley arguments that excuse corporatocracy and cronyism as "free competition".

There's only one grocery store in many towns, because the moment another chain opens, the dominant one lowers prices to below what the market can bear. The dominant chain takes temporary losses to drive competition out of business, then raises prices sky-high and returns to business as usual. This exact behavior occurs in many broadband markets.

[s73ver_]

Neither one of those is a true solution. For one, we currently do not live in a climate where competition is happening. Every NN supporter would love for that to happen, but for now it's not. Second, not every place can support competing ISPs. Do the people who live in the inner city or out in rural areas not deserve a neutral net?

[walshemj]

Local loop unbundling as in the UK does.

[kelnos]

We tried that in the US. The incumbents did weaselly things to make life difficult for the CLECs, and eventually lobbied Congress to remove the requirement.

[walshemj]

That's because your regulatory bodies are useless and given that Ofcom in the UK is Murdochs poodle - the FCC is realy useless

[kelnos]

Perhaps that's true, but acknowledging that doesn't fix the problem at hand.

[simplify]

Can you explain?

[walshemj]

In the UK any ISP can use the last mile typically BT/GPO plant. For example we use BT for POT and Demon for ADSL.

You have a lot of choice in your ISP in the uk

[tialaramex]

LLU is essentially irrelevant today, it's fascinating that people keep bringing this up.

LLU happens at the exchange where the local loop edge is. But today's users want speeds which aren't practical over the long local loop. So the fibre was pushed out to street cabinets, FTTC, which are much closer to the end user and too small and numerous for LLU to work.

This makes good technical/engineering sense but it means there is no real competition. What the UK did about that is heavy regulation. The regulator decides how much can be charged to deliver the FTTC service from a consumer to a POP owned by an ISP as a wholesale price.

[walshemj]

But most Subs don't want to pay the premium for FTC a lot of the high profile whining is from business's who think consumer BB is appropriate fr a business and want residential customers like pensioners and /or bt share holders to subsidize them.

when I helped sort out our BB for an office move in Farringdon (London) there is a lot of whining about BB but we manged to get a 70Mbs ELM in less than 2 weeks and 100Mbs in a quoted 3 months actually delivered less than 2

[russdill]

Municipal broadband.

[Rumudiez]

Amen -- treat it as a utility and just focus on maintaining dumb pipes.

[SamReidHughes]

We've already got cellular data service that's much better than the first DSL line my family got. That stranglehold is weaker than you might think.

[athenot]

While RF transmissions keep getting better and better, sending data over a link where you own the entire spectrum (Copper, fiber) is always going to be faster to maket a given speed than doing so in an environment where you share spectrum and interferences with the rest of the world.

This week I'm upgrading my connection to gigabit up/down over DOCSIS 3.1. While my own wifi supports near gigabit speeds, it will be a while before whole neighborhoods can enjoy the same over cellular service.

[Afforess]

If cellular data services were not capped (or throttled down, past an imaginary line the phone company rarely shares), then you might have an argument. As it stands, 4g phone service is only a replacement for cable or dsl services for the rarest of individuals. Windows software updates alone will blow you through your cap.

[SamReidHughes]

You're looking backwards through time. Look forwards through time. There are all sorts of ways the last mile problem can be solved more cheaply than wiring up every household, with high network speeds.

[kelnos]

I see all these "can be" and "could be" type statements, but the reality of the situation is that we have not solved these problems yet, but today we have no net neutrality regulation. So it's ok to think of the bright future 5 years (optimistically) down the line while we've immediately taken a huge step back?

[DenisM]

T-mobile has uncapped tethering. Plenty fast too.

[AFNobody]

> We've already got cellular data service that's much better than the first DSL line my family got. That stranglehold is weaker than you might think.

Good luck using 500GB of cellular in a month.

[SamReidHughes]

Ten years from now, I will.

[kelnos]

So what do we do for the next 10 years?