[xaa]

First, there's quite a difference between unprofitable and less profitable.

Secondly, the internet is a utility. Utilities are regulated because they are essential and because they spawn natural monopolies. Interestingly, the prices I pay AND the service I get for utilities that are recognized as such and regulated (electricity, water, natural gas) are great. Completely the opposite for my cell service and internet. YMMV.

The only way capitalism works is if you have competition. The investment costs are too high, the players have implicit noncompete agreements, and when competition threatens to happen in this area, one player just buys out the other.

[Aloha]

Regulation before, the whole monopoly thing, came with rates set based on a rate of return, in exchange, all traffic had to be carried equally - and service had to be provided universally, meaning to every customer in the service footprint.

If we return to that mechanism, it will all work, if we try to do one or the other, nothing will work, meaning, you can't net neutrality it without making internet access a common carrier product, and by setting rates based on a reasonable rate of return.

Local regulation is a far bigger impact on building out a new network than any other single factor - it can take up to two years just to pull a permit to upgrade a cell site cabinet, its an order of magnitude more for something the magnitude of building out even a FTTN network.

[pessimizer]

>First, there's quite a difference between unprofitable and less profitable.

Not for fiber that was never rolled out. That can be exactly as profitable or unprofitable as you need it to be to make your point.

[xaa]

The CEO is implicitly claiming here that: a) given the current regulatory environment, the expansion would be profitable (since they're doing it), and b) if net neutrality were passed, there is a serious possibility that it would no longer be profitable.

Net neutrality does not really affect what customers pay. So, there are two possibilities here: the first is that AT&T was planning on shaking down Netflix, Google, et al for peering, in an amount large enough to make the difference between the expansion being profitable or unprofitable. The second possibility is that he is full of hot air and net neutrality would not significantly affect their profit margin.

[pessimizer]

If Google and Netflix want to use all of the internet and still take all of your money, why shouldn't they pay for it? Under net neutrality they're not allowed to.

[xaa]

Traffic on the modern internet is almost totally unidirectional: it comes from big content providers and goes to consumers. When I pay my ISP for internet, I am paying them for the service of delivering the bits from the content providers to me. The concept of Netflix or Google "using up" all the internet is incoherent, because by the definition of an ISP all the traffic they generate is going to consumers who are paying the ISP and are bandwidth-capped.

Imagine if the major postal service providers decided that, instead of only the sender paying for the package, now both the sender and the receiver have to pay, because they are both "using" the service.

I suppose there is nothing inherently wrong with someone being paid twice for the same service, although it comes across as incredibly greedy, but the end effect is that consumers pay more and the ISPs get more profit, because the content providers' costs will be passed on to consumers.

EDIT: There's also no logical reason why the content providers should be paying ISPs for peering. The reverse is equally "logical". You might as well ask why Google and Netflix aren't shaking down ISPs because they provide things that customers want and the ISP would be less desirable without them.

[klipt]

> I suppose there is nothing inherently wrong with someone being paid twice for the same service, although it comes across as incredibly greedy, but the end effect is that consumers pay more and the ISPs get more profit, because the content providers' costs will be passed on to consumers.

Well there are obvious conflicts of interest here. Many ISPs are also content providers. E.g. Comcast has xfinity TV streaming which competes pretty directly with Netflix.

So if Netflix has to pay an exorbitant amount to link a server to Comcast but Comcast can stream stuff to their customers basically for free...

[pessimizer]

Am I still playing the monopolist apologist in this discussion, or has Poe's Law turned me into one?

Shill response: "I don't understand a word you just said. Tell me how you're going to get my constituents their netflix!"

[msh]

Why should the bandwidth be paid twice? It's all ready paid for by the consumer so why should Netflix also pay?

[pessimizer]

Poe's Law strikes again. That argument was intentionally twisted to be maximally confusing and deceptive. The fact that it's working so well in this thread that people feel like they have to respond to it makes me think it'll work on Fox News just as well.

[comex]

Of course Google for one is trying to "pay for it" by getting into the ISP business.

[pessimizer]

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/9873757f97/porn-star-net-ne...