[PaulHoule]

This is why the Net Neutrality ruling was not a big step forward.

The right way to solve the internet problem is "unbundling"; that is, the people who own the last mile lease it out to companies that sell you internet, video and other services. If Comcast customers were getting a bad netflix experience they could switch to an ISP that gives a good one.

[phkahler]

>> The right way to solve the internet problem is "unbundling"; that is, the people who own the last mile lease it out to companies that sell you internet, video and other services.

That's terrible. The ISP should give me "internet access" which includes everything out there. They should not get to pick and chose what I can get.

>> If Comcast customers were getting a bad netflix experience they could switch to an ISP that gives a good one.

This is called competition. It's what you get with net neutrality. Since every ISP has to give you everything equally, the only way they can compete is by building better infrastructure and compete on ping time and bandwidth. This is how it should be. Allowing them to prioritize certain services for a fee (regardless of who pays) means allowing them to stagnate - in fact paying them to stagnate - which is bad for everyone.

[pyre]

> This is called competition. It's what you get with net neutrality.

You are stating that "Net Neutrality" will magically create competing ISPs in places where only a duopoly of <Cable Company> and <DSL Company> currently exist. Please explain to me how net neutrality will somehow affect things like local municipalities granting ISPs local monopolies. Or how "net neutrality" will allow new-comers to overcome the initial regulatory and capital investment hurdles to setting up a new ISP.

What you're missing is the "unbundling" is talking about forcing (e.g.) Comcast to lease it's "last-mile" lines out to competing ISPs. This means that competing ISPs don't need to invest in "last-mile" infrastructure. (If you don't understand what "last-mile" means, it would behoove you to look it up).

Net neutrality does play a part here in that if Comcast partners with Netflix, they could provide a better Netflix experience than a smaller ISP without bargaining power, but the lack of ISP competition is arguably a bigger problem and calling out "Net Neutrality" as the solution to all Internet connectivity woes doesn't help.

[phkahler]

>> Please explain to me how net neutrality will somehow affect things like local municipalities granting ISPs local monopolies. Or how "net neutrality" will allow new-comers to overcome the initial regulatory and capital investment hurdles to setting up a new ISP.

It doesn't. Local monopoly support from the government is a big problem, but it's also not the only problem. I actually have 3 options at my home and it doesn't seem to be causing an increase in service or a reduction in prices.

That said, as video moves to the internet and as the ISPs lose differentiation, we can hope for actual competition on access to what FCC regulation will make a commodity service. But I'm not entirely convinced that will happen either.

[toast0]

> This is called competition. It's what you get with net neutrality. Since every ISP has to give you everything equally, the only way they can compete is by building better infrastructure and compete on ping time and bandwidth. This is how it should be. Allowing them to prioritize certain services for a fee (regardless of who pays) means allowing them to stagnate - in fact paying them to stagnate - which is bad for everyone.

Access to everything equally is not physically possible; if we pretend it is physically possible, it's not logistically possible: no ISP is going to peer with all networks at all peering points; and no regulator is going to compel an ISP to peer with all networks at all peering points.

Unbundling is easy to define, and easy to regulate, and offers a way to get competition where it's most effective. Unfortunately, it seems to be not easy to put in place. The basic idea with unbundling is that last mile delivery is cost intensive, and has high barriers to entry, etc: a market solution isn't going to work: instead require that the last mile providers offer wholesale access to get packets to a centralized point (or points) where other providers can deliver the connectivity to rest of the networks. This actually makes sense: once you're at a carrier hotel, you have a large number of options to interconnect; getting from a central last-mile provider building to a carrier hotel is managable, but getting from each home to a specific building is capital intensive.

[jackmaney]

> no regulator is going to compel an ISP to peer with all networks at all peering points.

Then we need new--and more stringent--regulation.

[toast0]

You can't really regulate an impossible solution though.

Unbundling has a clear model that works (or is at least workable), look at the US between 1996 and 2004, or most of Europe now.

[rayiner]

Growth in internet speeds was way faster from 2004-present than from 1996 to 2004. In 1996, my parents had 28.8 kbps dial-up. In 2001, they got 256 kbps DSL. That's 10x over 5 years. In 2006, they got 50 mbps fiber. That's 200x over 5 years. See: http://www.ieee802.org/3/ad_hoc/bwa/public/sep11/cloonan_01a....

[DubiousPusher]

For various reasons, ISPs tend not to build competing infrastructure. Many municipalities grant time limited monopolies to Telecoms to get them to accelerate infrastructure construction. Also, after an ISP lays its lines and pays for them, it can make all future pricing decisions on the margin, meaning, it can price its service just above the cost of maintaining it. Another company will find it very difficult to incur the cost of construction and keep its price competitive.

I don't know enough about unbundling to say if I support it or not but I believe it has been pretty popular in countries that have adopted it.

[neohaven]

> That's terrible. The ISP should give me "internet access" which includes everything out there. They should not get to pick and chose what I can get.

That is not what last mile means.

[jackmaney]

> Since every ISP has to give you everything equally, the only way they can compete is by building better infrastructure and compete on ping time and bandwidth.

And customer service.

[JoeAltmaier]

and reliability.

[k2enemy]

How would this solve the problem though? Having competition at the last mile doesn't solve the problem of congestion in miles 2-100 where there is still one company.

[djrogers]

The point is that if 'last-mile' services were open to competition, then there would (could) be many companies in what you call the 2-100 mile arena. Building an ISP infrastructure is merely difficult and expensive. On the other hand, thanks to municipal involvement, lobbying, time-based monopolies, etc. building last-mile everywhere is basically impossible.

[JoeAltmaier]

Exaggeration. Cable did it everywhere in America over a period of a couple of years.

[toast0]

Cable built an internet infrastructure across America on top of existing outdoor wiring plant (including access to poles) built up over many years.

Cable built up the outdoor wiring plant by offering a compelling new service (great reception for local TV and exclusive national programming) without significant competition (you could get a giant satellite dish, but compact dishes were not available until after cable was mostly entrenched).

It's not easy to overlay additional infrastructure wiring to compete with existing services (most areas already have good enough internet and video services from one or two providers; especially when a new entrant prompts upgrades from the incumbents). On the other hand, it's very easy to use wholesale access (if available) to provide middle mile competition. You would just need a couple routers (one at last mile provider building; one in a local carrier hotel/colo), a leased line between them, and a transit account.

[dzdt]

And cable secured maasive legal and bureaucratic hurdles to prevent anyone else from doing the same.

[wmf]

In theory there wouldn't be "one company" anywhere other than the wires. If you have a choice between ISP A who is deliberately congesting Netflix, ISP B who receives Netflix over uncongested transit, ISP C who was uncongested extortionate peering with Netflix, or ISP D who has uncongested free peering with Netflix then you just choose whichever ISP provides the price and performance that you prefer. And if all the customers choose ISP D, maybe the other ISPs will change their policies to try to win customers.

Unfortunately there are other problems (like "your DSL being down is not our fault") with unbundling.

[k2enemy]

Ok, this makes more sense now. I had interpreted "the last mile" to be closer to the home than the level of the network that is hashing out peering deals with transits.

[toast0]

Unbundling requires sharing of last mile infrastructure to allow for competition in the middle mile. Last mile wiring has huge barriers to entry, middle mile wiring barriers are significantly lower.

[cheald]

The last mile is where competition becomes difficult due to physical buildout restrictions. There are quite a lot of "mile 2-100" companies; it's not like Cogent is the only game in town.

[higherpurpose]

Is that what "unbundling" actually means in this case? I thought it was just referring to letting other companies use your cables to resell the service at better prices/speeds.

[drzaiusapelord]

> the people who own the last mile lease it out to companies that sell you internet

The only way that would happen nationwide is via federal law. What chances do you think the Tea Party congress would have of passing this?

The FCC policy is pretty much our only shot here and makes a lot of sense. The industry will pivot itself around it now that they can't fight it. They are now forced to play nicely with each other. Yes, there is going to be an ugly interim period, but I think we're going to remember Wheeler as the man who saved the internet as we know it.