[cletus]

I'm all in favour of treating Internet access as the "fourth utility". It's clear it's become almost as essential to modern life as electricity.

I do however find the doom and gloom prognostications around Title II repeal to be incredibly hyperbolic and unhelpful. Fact is, Title II was only introduced in 2015. It's not like repeal in 2017 is going to end the Internet overnight.

There are three problems here:

1. The US has a harebrained notion of "competition" in creating regional monopolies.

2. It actually doesn't make much sense to build multiple last-mile networks. This is called an overbuild and is rather wasteful given the capex involved. It's also why strict rules are in place for utilities: it underscores the fact that utilities are monopolies and seeks to prevent overbuilds.

3. ISPs have been allowed to frame the debate on peering with outright falsehoods. Specifically, the likes of Comcast claim that it's "unfair" that the likes of Netflix can "push" data onto their network for free no less. Netflix of course isn't pushing anything. Comcast's customers are requesting it.

It's all just a thinly-veiled attempt to stifle VOD providers to prop up dying (yet profitable) cable TV businesses. The fact that politicians aren't able to or don't want to see through this is both unsurprising and disappointing.

Adopting net neutrality laws at a state level is an interesting idea that may force Federal regulatino. I mean what's worse that one set of Federal rules for a large company? 50 sets of state rules, that's what.

Even if just CA and NY adopt this, that's already a sizable amount of the population.

[int_19h]

I'm also in the pro-NN camp, and have been for a very long time, and my observations match yours: the pro-NN propaganda this year is definitely a lot more about hype and emotions than it is about facts.

I think it's really just because it was successfully made into a mainstream political issue. So now you have to appeal to the mass audience, not just IT nerds; and we're just seeing the same tactics that is routinely used to whip up support (or opposition) to other stuff.

I'm actually weirdly uncomfortable about this. It's like being the guy who has cried wolf for many years, and now half of the village is there with you; but you see them pointing at rocks, logs etc, and insisting that these are all wolves, and we're all going to die now. It really made me question just how many people who happen to share my political positions, do so because they genuinely understand and agree with the policies, and not because it's just what you're supposed to do when you have a certain identity (liberal etc).

[smallnamespace]

And yet the temptation to extract rents from content providers is higher than it has ever been. Just look at the market capitalization of Netflix today, which is about 20x compared to 2010.

I just can't imagine that ISPs won't make a grab for revenues, otherwise why spend money to lobby against NN? They're probably just waiting for the current furor to die down and sneak it in without people noticing.

[indubitable]

That already happened, in 2014. Netflix made agreements with Comcast/Time Warner/AT&T/Verizon.

I think it will be interesting to see what happens now. I imagine the ISPs already feel they're very near the peak price:demand curve for consumers. Their monopoly is such that customers can't really say no unless they're willing to go with no access. So I'd agree that if there was going to be a squeeze it'd be on other large companies. But that also opens up the door to a far more motivated Google Fiber. And the lack of net neutrality opens up some interesting things - for instance a Netflix arrangement with an upstart ISP could offer free access at ultra-premium speeds to Netflix. That is something that the current monopolists could not necessarily match.

Should be interesting to see how this plays out.

[smallnamespace]

Non-negligible competition in the form of building out new fibre is basically never going to happen because of how inefficient it is in real economic terms.

Forget about all the political and business aspects -- the actual effort required to lay out new wiring, then run it to the home, is from an economic standpoint just pure deadweight loss.

1 cable is necessary. 2 cables is redundant.

Unfortunately, the ISPs have a point here that 'competition' in the form of multiple companies laying wiring to the same home is sheer folly.

Now what's the value proposition to an investor to fund direct competition?

If you shake someone down, there's more than one way to get paid off. It can come in the form of protection money, or you can just get them to buy you out. I'd imagine that Comcast et al will want to keep the tolls just low enough that it's in nobody's best interest to actually run more wiring.

Plus the ISPs can always buy off cash-starved local and regional governments, like they have been doing to Google Fiber, and delay the laying of new fibre indefinitely. There's no need to outlaw competition, just leverage the legal and administrative process to indefinitely fight over details like utility pole access.

[indubitable]

It's definitely not weird to feel uncomfortable about all of this. In case I think the 'mob' was pointed in the right direction, but this sort of mass emotional hysteria is how very bad things also happen. How many people, actively involved in this issue, could accurately explain both sides' views? Both sides views of the future with/without net neutrality? I'm not sure of the answer, but it is going to be extremely low. And that is terrifying. It means that people are involved, often aggressively, primarily on an emotional level.

This hysteria is undoubtedly the reason you have things like bomb threats being called in on the FCC. Did the person who did that actually have any degree of understanding on the issue for which he probably was fantasizing about hurting or even killing people over? The safe guess there is probably not.

[RyanZAG]

Great point, and I think the question we should all be asking ourselves is how do we know we're not the ones pointing at rocks and shouting wolf at a myriad of issues we don't really understand - but believe we do.

As soon as it comes to anything political, we're all suddenly experts predicting gloom, doom or salvation over every single policy issue. Logic says every person is probably wrong on average half of the time, yet every person believes they are correct in their political team playing 100% of the time. That can't be healthy.

[gajomi]

>It really made me question just how many people who happen to share my political positions, do so because they genuinely understand and agree with the policies, and not because it's just what you're supposed to do when you have a certain identity (liberal etc).

Its worth thinking about how well reasoned and deeply researched justifications of positions make headway in a democracy. Expert opinion is expensive to acquire and not accessible to the majority. In a hierarchy of coalitions information is potential compressed at every level. If it gets compressed enough it might just end up as a left versus right or up versus down issue, with the justification for this reasoning only accessible by traversing up and down the hierarchy. I am not sure that this is a bad thing, butI can appreciate your concern about causes of an individuals motivation, especially in light of the potential for a propaganda apparatus to insert itself into my aforedescribed idealization.

[lumisota]

Title II was only introduced as a result of the Open Internet Order (from 2010) being overturned. Net neutrality principles have been sanctioned by the FCC since 2005; removing title II designation and moving away from these principles is a shift that should not be understated.

[lisper]

> Net neutrality principles have been sanctioned by the FCC since 2005

And before that no ISP would even consider tiered pricing because there were no services worth tiering. Alexadra Petri has a really good analogy over at the WaPo:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2017/12/14/n...

[SilasX]

You're referring to this part?

>>It may not be technically illegal to bring a bear into a maternity ward, but we have, I think, started to live our lives with the expectation that nobody will do this. So if we put forth a rule saying, just so we’re clear, No Bears in the Maternity Ward, I would not expect anyone to complain that this was stifling innovation. In fact, if someone said “Hey, let’s get rid of that rule about not bringing bears into hospitals so we can restore the wonderful, competitive environment we had before,” I would wonder, “What exactly are you PLANNING that you need us to get rid of this relatively basic protection?”

[croon]

If I might be so bold as to put forth one slight addendum to that analogy:

The rule about No Bears in the Maternity Ward only came to be after a number of cases where someone had brought a bear into a maternity ward, following a long history of bear-free maternity wards, in which time the rule had not yet been needed.

[cletus]

Actually Title II dates back to 1934.

[cletus]

Not sure why people are downvoting this but Title II goes back to the Communications Act of 1934 [1] [2] [3].

This may have been revised extensively in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 [4] and with subsequent policy changes around treatment of "telecommunications services", "information services" and "common carriers" but the point remains: Title II has a long history.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_S...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Act_of_1934#Str...

[3] https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/1934new.pdf, pp35-136

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996...

[lumisota]

Sorry; I (and presumably your original comment) meant the designation of Internet service providers as common carriers under Title II. This designation was applied in 2015.

[joshAg]

ISPs were Title II until 2005 when Michael Powell, the Republican FCC chairman who was appointed by George Bush, reclassified the ISPs as Title 1 as part of the Republican plan to spur internet growth in the US via deregulation. (What we now call) Net neutrality violations followed soon after, but weren't widely reported until 2007 at which point people belatedly realized that Comcast had been violating net neutrality since 2005.

[kgermino]

Can you give example of those violations? (And possibly what resulted of them)

Honestly asking, my memory of new events from that era is somewhat hazy.

[joshAg]

https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/25/net-neutrality-vio...

What resulted were a bunch of efforts to let ISPs remain Title I but still allow the FCC to enforce net neutrality on them. They failed because the ISPs would sue the FCC over each successive plan/rules.

The last case was Verizon vs the FCC and in that case the judge said the FCC could enforce net neutrality if and only if it classified the ISPs as Title II instead of as Title I.

The FCC then took a couple years trying to find a way around this, but ultimately decided in 2015 to jsut reclassify the ISPs as Title II, because they couldn't find any other way to enforce net neutrality while keeping the ISPs classified as Title I.

PS:

>>>> VERIZON: During oral arguments in Verizon v. FCC in 2013, judges asked whether the phone giant would favor some preferred services, content or sites over others if the court overruled the agency’s existing open internet rules. Verizon counsel Helgi Walker had this to say: “I’m authorized to state from my client today that but for these rules we would be exploring those types of arrangements.” Walker’s admission might have gone unnoticed had she not repeated it on at least five separate occasions during arguments.

[ardit33]

You must be young?

I remember a time when you couldn't text to other carrier, while Europe had it since the 90s.

I remember how your carrier would not let you use facetime/skype etc....

Anyway, you are paying for access to internet and you should have it.

This is akin to letting a private entity building a private highway on a public ground, and the owner of the highway can say: Only Audis and BMWs are allowed here...

[oceanplexian]

It's not "public ground". Electric companies and utilities acquire a mixture of easements, most of which are actually private, and listed on a property title.

[ardit33]

Almost all copper/fiber/etc pass through public roads at some point (or beneath them to be more exact), so yes they are using public grounds for their infrastructure.

Same with your gas/electric/water line

While "Wireless" provides are given PUBLIC spectrum to use for their business (they pay for it, but that's besides the point).

So yes, 99% of internet out there uses some public areas at some point.

[mandelbulb]

There is no point mentioning public ground in the analogy, better say, for access to public transit, which represents the internet.

[AFNobody]

> I do however find the doom and gloom prognostications around Title II repeal to be incredibly hyperbolic and unhelpful. Fact is, Title II was only introduced in 2015. It's not like repeal in 2017 is going to end the Internet overnight.

So when you say "it was only introduced in 2015", what you really mean is "it was a heavily disputed situation for 20 years in with multiple court cases being won and lost by ISPs".

So yeah, this is the first time the regulatory framework is basically _gone_ even if it wasn't "Title II".

1996 Telecommunication Act: It was a legal gray area, particularly given dial up / dsl over telephone lines.

2002: FCC exempts NCTA by declaring it an information service, not telecommunications.

2005: NCTA wins at the Supreme Court

Open Internet Principles: 2005-2010 (i.e. Threatening to regulate)

Open Internet Order: 2010-2015 (Regulating, legally overturned)

Regulatory framework repealed today: 2015-2017

[cletus]

Again, hyperbolic.

Some action against Comcast throttling/blocking BitTorrent (in 2007-2009) ultimately resulted in action by the FCC in 2010, made rather toothless in 2014 with the provisions against blocking and throttling struck down.

So between 2010-2014 and 2015-2017 we have ~6 years of regulation, with the ISPs fighting it all the way (surprise surprise).

Just to clarify: I'm in agreement that we need net neutrality. I've just been around the block enough times to know that the FCC's latest action just isn't the end of the world.

[dragonwriter]

> Some action against Comcast throttling/blocking BitTorrent (in 2007-2009) ultimately resulted in action by the FCC in 2010

Comcast wasn't the only enforcement action under the 2005-2010 case-by-case approach. (The first was the Madison River VoIP blocking case, in 2005.)

[kelnos]

> Just to clarify: I'm in agreement that we need net neutrality. I've just been around the block enough times to know that the FCC's latest action just isn't the end of the world.

That's contradictory. Either we don't need net neutrality, and we're all being silly caring, or we do need net neutrality, and the ruckus is justified.

I don't see how we could need net neutrality, have it just be repealed, but be told that it's no big deal and we should just go about our business and not care.

I agree it's not the end of the world, in the sense that now ISPs will start to behave badly again, and either Congress or the FCC will be forced to act/backpedal (of course, after a lot of harm has already been done), or, at worst, we'll have to wait for a sane administration to be in office to restore some regulation. But that doesn't mean it's not a big deal right now.

[jack9]

> Title II was only introduced in 2015

It was treated as such prior to that, implicitly (without the force of law). Policy was established to enforce it, formally. It wasn't just "introduced", it was tacitly accepted until there were known bad actors, because there was an expectation that acting in opposition would birth policy (it did). Pretending that traffic was treated equally before and after, is just another piece of mischaracterization. A piece that is used to distract from, and minimize, the problems with removing the policy.

[wpietri]

> It actually doesn't make much sense to build multiple last-mile networks. This is called an overbuild and is rather wasteful given the capex involved.

Yes, obviously. Just like roads. Which is why local governments should design and operate all residential internet networks.

Or: Yes, obviously. A house really only needs one electrified wire, which is why we should turn over internet service to the power company.

Or: Yes, obviously. We don't want an internet that's wasteful in any part of its operations, which is why it should be run entirely by the federal government. In fact, it's about communications, so let's combine it with the USPS.

Or: Yes, obviously. Given its vital role in society and its origins as a DARPA project, it should be entirely built and operated by the US Army.

On the other hand, maybe what we need is a proper market in internet connectivity, with multiple providers using different technologies and approaches to meet consumer needs, and a strong regulator that keeps large companies from driving the small ones under.

As somebody who lives in one of the few competitive ISP markets in the US and pays $50/month for my gigabit home fiber connection, I think I prefer the latter.

[EGreg]

They have this in France. They make ISPs share the lines and compete on their plans to send bits over those lines. If a line is upgraded, they share the cost.

[wpietri]

Yeah, there are many good ways to do this. The US had a similar program up until 2005 where local phone companies had to allow ISPs to rent access to their last-mile wiring at mandatory rates. I like the idea, but I don't think it's practical in the US given business culture and the responsiveness of politicians to lobbying dollars.

[notyourday]

That's not the way it worked.

The access was provided only to dry pairs ( think alarm wires) for DSL if the carriers had unused dry pairs ( they did not ). To do that, one needed to colocate in a certain number of COs ( large ), take at least a rack per CO ( $2.5K-5K ) even if one had only ONE subscriber. The rack was placed into a special area of CO (so only some COs had them - there was no requirement to build out that area ) and finally in order to terminate anything out of that rack one needed to buy a crazy expensive service from the CO carrier ( think $10-15k/mo ) to get a DS3 or OC3 out.

This meant that absolutely no sane ISP could really afford to do this as there would be no customers wanting to pay hundreds of dollars a month for IP service. ISP DSL access was a replacement for T1s selling for $1.5K/mo between loop and IP, not for residential.

There was no requirement to share fiber builds.

[wpietri]

As someone who got residential internet service for many years through a colocated DSLAM, paying something like $60/month, I think you are overstating your case.

Regardless, I agree it never took off as regulators intended, but my point was the intent was similar: mandatory shared last-mile infrastructure.

[notyourday]

Your service ISP lost money on you every month.

[zamalek]

The other option is to re-instate line sharing. This would allow competition to immediately enter the market, with much fewer tax dollars spent. You would pay slightly more for competition (to cover the line rental) - but I would pay more to not have to deal with Comcast, even in the absence of the NN issue.

This completely side-skirts the rule that disallows states from making their own NN legislature.

[lobster_johnson]

One reason to be in the doom and gloom camp is that we now have an administration and an FCC that is openly hostile to net neutrality. The previous FCC was engaged in multiple rulings (against Comcast and others) in favour of neutrality, long before the Title II classification. There's every indication that, if presented with similar complaints in the future, the current FCC will not make similar rulings.

[garfieldnate]

In the AMA we had with the New York State attorney, he said that the title II regulation came about because the courts struck down the usage of title I for the same thing. So we haven't actually had much experience with unregulated ISPs at this point.

[thesagan]

Maybe we should consider "overbuilding" then. Otherwise it just should be a public utility that leases bandwidth to private entities.

[zer00eyz]

> This is called an overbuild and is rather wasteful given the capex involved.

Wasn't the original phone system vastly over built and that is the reason that things like DSL were possible without having to run new wiring in many homes?

[cletus]

An overbuild in this context would be a whole separate network, which the US typically has in most places, namely the phone network and a cable provider. Nowadays people tend to exclude the phone network from discussions of broadband as ADSL speeds are inferior to cable (let alone fiber).

Phone lines had a filter on them to only pass through voice range frequencies. It's why you could hear the sounds made by a modem (or a fax for that matter). These were simply working around the filter.

xDSL was a result of removing that filter. Or, rather, moving it into the customer premises so instead of 2-3kHz, the copper line could support frequencies into the MHz range.

ADSL has a speed limit that follows an inverse square law to the distance the line travels to the exchange. Under ~1km ADSL2+ can get 20+ Mbps. At about 6km ADSL/ADSL2/ADSL2+ all cap out at about ~1.5Mbps and much beyond that it doesn't work at all.

4-5km is a typical average distance for a phone line, putting the max speed in the 5-8Mbps range. Pretty good for the early 2000s. Not so great now.

There are various workarounds for this, most notably reducing the copper distance. In Australia, the NBN (in part) uses FttN (fiber to the node) so Exchange -> fiber -> Node -> copper -> Customer. Limit the copper distance to 1.5km and put VDSL2 on it and you can get closer to 100Mbps.

[milankragujevic]

fyi over VDSL2 you can get 25/2 at 1200m of copper.

[jethro_tell]

Washington has also stated that it will put something in place.

[jayess]

So far today I've learned that a two year old policy being repealed is anti-gay, will stop women from getting abortions, will stop the black lives matter movement from speaking freely, and will prevent the #metoo movement from growing. Yes, all because the internet before 2015 was completely censored and prevented free speech.

If anything, I've seen a significant rise in censorship since NN was passed.

The hyperbole today is just off the charts sad.

[alsetmusic]

So far, I count five posts from your account just within this sub thread. Not one has any citations for claims that you make. This undermines the credibility of your arguments.

Please back up your statements by pointing to sources that support your interpretation of laws and events so that others can verify them.

[jayess]

If you're hearing this for the first time then you aren't getting your news from someone who is aware of the US Telecom Association v FCC case in which the court of appeals made it clear that because of first amendment problems, the FCC can't prohibit censorship by ISPs.

https://techliberation.com/2017/07/12/heres-why-the-obama-fc...

https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/06F8BFD0...

...and this: https://www.attpublicpolicy.com/consumer-broadband/the-surpr...

[comex]

The court of appeals did no such thing. In your second link, the most recent decision, it wrote:

> Does the rule lie within the agency’s statutory authority? And is it consistent with the First Amendment? The answer to both questions, in our view, is yes.

This was the majority opinion, although one judge dissented and said it did violate the First Amendment.

The court did mention a clause in the FCC order then under consideration about ‘edited’ services, which is what your first link takes out of context. The order itself explicitly allowed for such services, so as far as I can tell, the court did not opine one way or the other on whether ISPs separately have a First Amendment right to provide them. This isn’t as big a loophole as it sounds, though. Describing the order’s requirements, the court wrote:

> That would be true of an ISP that offers subscribers a curated experience by blocking websites lying beyond a specified field of content (e.g., family friendly websites). It would also be true of an ISP that engages in other forms of editorial intervention, such as throttling of certain applications chosen by the ISP, or filtering of content into fast (and slow) lanes based on the ISP’s commercial interests. An ISP would need to make adequately clear its intention to provide “edited services” of that kind, id. ¶ 556, so as to avoid giving consumers a mistaken impression that they would enjoy indiscriminate “access to all content available on the Internet, without the editorial intervention of their broadband provider,” id. ¶ 549. It would not be enough under the Order, for instance, for “consumer permission” to be “buried in a service plan—the threats of consumer deception and confusion are simply too great.” Id. ¶ 19; see id. ¶ 129.

> There is no need in this case to scrutinize the exact manner in which a broadband provider could render the FCC’s Order inapplicable by advertising to consumers that it offers an edited service rather than an unfiltered pathway. No party disputes that an ISP could do so if it wished, and no ISP has suggested an interest in doing so in this court. That may be for an understandable reason: a broadband provider representing that it will filter its customers’ access to web content based on its own priorities might have serious concerns about its ability to attract subscribers.

[AFNobody]

It isn't two years old. Its been a heavily disputed area of law/regulation since 1996 with various patchworks that served similar functions. From actual regulation, to threatening to regulate if there was too much backlash, to regulating again, to regulating under Title 2.

1996 Telecommunication Act: It was a legal gray area, particularly given dial up / dsl over telephone lines.

2002: FCC exempts NCTA by declaring it an information service, not telecommunications.

2005: NCTA wins at the Supreme Court

Open Internet Principles: 2005-2010 (i.e. Threatening to regulate)

Open Internet Order: 2010-2015 (Regulating, legally overturned)

Regulatory framework repealed today: 2015-2017

------------------

"If anything, I've seen a significant rise in censorship since NN was passed."

Censorship by whom? A bunch of websites that are completely separate entities from ISPs that are monopolies for all intents and purposes?

[jayess]

'Censorship by whom? A bunch of websites that are completely separate entities from ISPs that are monopolies for all intents and purposes?'

Yes, those same web sites that are breathlessly telling me today the repealing NN is a mortal threat to my very existence, who then turn around and engage in censorship themselves.

[simplify]

Anyone can create their own website. Not everyone can create their own ISP.

[jayess]

Under NN ISPs were free to censor content.

Edit: Downvoting a simple, verifiable fact? Nice. That about sums up this whole charade.

[orthecreedence]

Ok, you just destroyed any of your credibility. I'm not even going to bother arguing with your other posts.

[danjoc]

We can build our own ISPs. I've read many good posts today that dispute your statement. Here's one,

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15926261

[simplify]

From the post you linked:

> The only real roadblock is money. Fiber ISPs are super cheap at scale, but are effectively impossible to bootstrap unless you are already a millionaire.

(I didn't downvote you)

[AFNobody]

I would suggest you could create your own replacement for the sites that offend you.

Free market competition exists for websites and there is probably a market for it if you are upset about it.

[jayess]

You're completely missing my point. Today everyone is screaming at the top of their lungs that because of the repeal of NN, ISPs will begin censoring speech, while these campaigns are being financed and propagated by the very entities that engage in wholesale censorship of speech.

I actually laughed out loud today when I saw a tweet from twitter saying that NN will allow for censorship. Twitter is a festering den of opaque censorship. No one sees the irony?

[wpietri]

You don't quite understand censorship.

Let's suppose I put up a website where I accept articles about model trains. You submit articles about how to grow anthrax at home. I pass, in that they are not about model trains. Am I a shocking censor? No.

Or let's suppose you submit an article that is about model trains, but I don't think it's very good. I refuse it. is that censorship? Also no.

Twitter gets to decide what goes on their platform. If you don't like it, you can post it on some other platform. Or just make your own platform, one equally available to every Internet user.

If Comcast, on the other hand, decides to block a site because it's critical of them, then many millions of people will not be able to see it, and many of them won't be able to switch to a different ISP. That is censorship.

[kelnos]

You do realize that we had net neutrality regulation before 2015, right? It was just enforced via other means, means which were found by the courts to be overreach by the FCC in 2015, at which point the regulation was restored by reclassifying ISPs under Title II of the Communications Act.