The Case Against Net Neutrality 702
jeek writes "While I certainly don't agree with it, this article tries to make the case that Net Neutrality may actually be bad for America. From the article: 'If the government regulates net neutrality, policies for internet access are set by one entity: the FCC. However, if the government stays out, each company will set its own policies. If you don’t like the FCC’s policies, you are stuck with them unless you leave the United States. If you don’t like your internet service provider’s policies, you can simply switch to another one. So which model sounds better to you?'"
Monopolies (Score:2, Interesting)
Transparency not Neutrality... (Score:5, Interesting)
What is needed is network transparency, not necessarily network neutrality.
EG, under some definitions of network neutrality, various useful traffic shaping (such as placing heavy users in a different QOS tier when compared with light users, implementing per-user fairness, or doing Remote Active Queue Management to mitigate the effect of overbuffered access devices), would not be allowed.
Yet such shaping would generally benefit all users: it prevents heavy users from impacting light users (in the first two cases) and even reduces heavy users self-inflicted damage (in the latter case). But the same devices which could implement such beneficial shaping could also perform amazingly anticompetitive traffic manipulation, such as disrupting a user's VoIP calls.
Thus what we need is network transparency: ISPs must disclose what their policies are: how they shape and manipulate traffic in ways that may benefit or may damage users. And we need active verification of such policies, because although most ISPs will be honest, some won't be.
Politicians vs Corporations (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Switch to another one...? (Score:2, Interesting)
There are few ISPs because most ISPs are government-enforced monopolies.
For broadband Internet, I have three basic choices:
1. The cable company (government helped pay for the wiring and used eminent domain to purchase easements for same).
2. The phone company (government helped pay for the wiring and used eminent domain to purchase easements for same).
3. Wireless/Cell phone (more independent, but VERY expensive and much slower compared to the other options).
Comcast and Fairpoint are welcome to stop accepting government regulation the instant they refund the government dollars that helped pay for the wires they have up and vacate or allow competitors to use the poles that are placed on government-enforced rights of way.
In the meantime, the wires and the rights-of-way they traverse constitute public resources, and the public has a voice in how they are to be used. The government is the voice of the people in this matter.
Re:Transparency not Neutrality... (Score:4, Interesting)
because although most ISPs will be honest, some won't be.
Where have you been for the past 10 years? Most ISPs (read: Telcos & Cablecos) have long demonstrated their inability to be honest.
And while transparency is certainly important, its only the first step. What the most NN people want is transparency + nondiscrimination based on traffic source. If you have no or few alternatives for internet access, it does very little good knowing that your ISP is screwing you.
WHAT!?!?! (Score:4, Interesting)
If the government regulates net neutrality, policies for internet access are set by one entity: the FCC. However, if the government stays out, each company will set its own policies. If you don't like the FCC's policies, you are stuck with them unless you leave the United States.
Same old argument (Score:5, Interesting)
So what does this mean to net neutrality. Net neutrality is a basic rules, like not colluding, or the work week, or code of building, that will drive innovation. Without such a rule companies will compete on which data is delivered quickly, instead of the speed of quantity data delivered. Collusion will be the norm as companies form ties to deliver certain data quickly, while making competing data not quick. As most of us only have one ISP, particularly for the last mile, and often without choice, we will be forced accept service not on the quality of content but on the availability of delivery(And before people take this to anti-iPhone rant, everyone has access to a competing company and a competing smarter phone).
With net neutrality, companies will be forced to invest in innovation, which is of course why many do not want net neutrality. No one wants the government to force them to spend money on innovation. Can you imagine the uproar when building codes required indoor plumbing? Sure it makes sense where it is cold, but down south it is a waste of money! But the fact is with net neutrality companies are going to learn to make efficient use of available bandwidth so that all content can be delivered quickly, not just the content the ISP chooses. It will be create real jobs, with people installing fiber, people looking at the data, and engineers developing solutions, instead of simply provided money so that top executives can buy dates.
Re:Personally? (Score:5, Interesting)
Last time I went to the DMV I walked in, picked up a number, waited about 5 mins, talked to a teller and was out the door all on my lunch break.
Last time I tried to buy high speed internet it took 2 hours on the phone, 3 customer service reps, and 2 canceled installer appointments (I got the self install kit) to get my cable modem registered. After all of that they didn't even remember to bill me for it. When they did remember to bill me for it several months later they sent some installers to put filters on the line. They didn't do it right and disconnected me instead. They sent another 2 installers over to fix it but those two forgot to put the filters on the line so it was all for nothing anyway.
Re:Transparency not Neutrality... (Score:5, Interesting)
Where have you been for the past 10 years? Most ISPs (read: Telcos & Cablecos) have long demonstrated their inability to be honest.
Where have I been? In the trenches.
I was one of the researchers behind the web tripwires project [washington.edu] for detecting ISP injected advertisements. I was one of the developers of the RST injection detector [isoc.org] that was used to monitor how ISPs were disrupting traffic with injected Resets. And I'm one of the developers of Netalyzr [netalyzr.com].
And overall, most ISPs are actually honest, and even the dishonest ones have gotten a fair bit better.
EG, Comcast was incredibly dishonest at the start on their BitTorrent shaping (denying what they were doing altogether), but in the end were honest about it once they got caught (it did indeed only affect upload-only BitTorrent flows, we were able to independently verify this), and has become much more transparent about their traffic shaping and port filtering policies since then (they even have done IETF drafts on how their traffic management is done today).
And this is why I believe that thing that really makes a difference is being able to validate that what an ISP says is actually true: If ISPs know that manipulations will be detected, they have a much lower incentive to manipulate traffic. This is why I believe in network transparency.
You notice how you don't have ISPs talking about doing advertisement injection. Why? because its detectable. You notice how most ISPs no longer mess with BitTorrent? Why: because its detectable.
This is the biggest benefit of transparency and enforcing transparency by measuring for violations: it keeps honest ISPs honest, and punishes the dishonest when (not if, but when) you catch them.
Re:Switch to another one...? (Score:3, Interesting)
2. The phone company (government helped pay for the wiring and used eminent domain to purchase easements for same).
Agreed on all counts. I live but 10 miles from the border of San Francisco and within
2.5 miles of a town of 100,000 people and the only internet connection available from the phone company is
about 56Kbit/S with DSL.
So short of moving I have no choice, it has to be cable internet, the phone company is no more an
option for the internet than a cell connection. Yes, that is why NN is absolutely necessary.
Re:Switch to another one...? (Score:3, Interesting)
Basic problem with premise (Score:3, Interesting)
My problem with this argument is that it's basic premise is false: it presupposes that I have more choice of ISPs than I have of government regulators. It so happens that this is incorrect. I have a choice of one regulator: the FCC. But I only have a choice of perhaps 2 ISPs: the cable company who serve my area, and the phone company that serves my area. That's because providing Internet service involves running wires along the public right-of-way, and those two entities have a legal monopoly on that. Normally I'd discount that, except that the monopoly exists because of the actions of those entities themselves: they refused to provide service at all unless they were granted that monopoly. This isn't a case of the government just up and granting them the monopoly, they actively worked to get it.
And their interests don't align with mine. I want, for instance, VoIP service that's cheap, reliable and of decent quality. They want to provide VoIP service that they can charge me for while spending the least they can on it. Normally they'd immediately be buried by Skype (which is exactly what actually happens), but if they can discriminate based on whose VoIP packets those are they can force Skype to be unusable by me and give me no option but to use their service if I want VoIP. The same for streaming audio, video, photo hosting, blogging, everything. The FCC, at least, isn't directly profiting by their regulations. So if I have to be subject to the whims of an entity and my alternatives are extremely limited at best and aren't radically different from each other, I'll take the one that isn't going to profit by hamstringing me.
Least Legal Demonimator (Score:3, Interesting)
Two points:
1. If the FCC is allowed to regulate speed, it establishes an argument that they are allowed to regulate everything else, including content, rates, policies, contracts, and who owns the infrastructure that has already been paid for by a private entity.
2. If the FCC establishes "minimum service standards" and "maximum service standards", ISPs will deliver the minimum and not one byte more. Why should they do anything else? If they're in compliance, they cannot be displaced, as nobody else will enter into competition. I certainly wouldn't invest in a company trying to compete with an established player in a fully-regulated business that requires a significant infrastructure.
Do you like your cell phone service? That's exactly what your Internet service will resemble.
As a ham radio operator ("Extra" license), I've seen firsthand and experienced firsthand just how well the FCC protects the "public interest". They don't. The FCC in all cases sides against the general public and with major communications businesses, and once the FCC has authority to decide who is allowed to offer what bandwidth to whom, they will be back to their normal modus operandi: taking services, bandwidth, and other allocations from public use to give to the fattest lobbyists, or in this case crafting law and policy to favor established players (thus preventing new competition). A leopard doesn't change his spots just because it's in a new place, and the FCC will not change its essential character just because it's been granted sweeping new authority where before it had none.
It comes down to this: with government authority, there's no such thing as "just a little regulation", and with public utilities you get the minimum mandated and nothing more. I'd love to see an exception, but as far as I know, there is none. Why is this different?
Re:Transparency not Neutrality... (Score:2, Interesting)
You're almost on the right track, but not quite. We need network "neutrality", where "neutrality" means there is no discrimination based solely upon *who* the traffic is coming from (or going to). In other words, an ISP can't "slow down" Yahoo's packets just because they're Yahoo's packets.
Now, this doesn't mean that they can't "slow down" *any* packets. They should still have a right to "slow down" Yahoo's packets based solely on the fact that a particular, unnamed source (which might happen to be Yahoo) is overwhelming their network, for instance.
A big part of the discussion is "what is meant by network neutrality?" Everyone I'm sure has their own ideas. This is something that needs to be *VERY* carefully crafted such that the end result allows for better service to everyone, now and in the future.
Of course, network transparency is a good idea too.
(I use "slow down" in quotes because I understand the term isn't quite applicable; perhaps "treat with lower preference" is more fitting.)
Let's try an analogy.... (Score:3, Interesting)
bittorent will certainly be illegal now. (Score:2, Interesting)
NN is extremely scary. If companies are no longer able to prioritize packets, then critical services like VOIP/SKYPE are going to disappear. Without anyway of providing QoS, many many small business that depend on priority business services from ISPs are going to be boned.
Manufacturers will not be allowed to build routers with QoS, or packet shaping, thus making College campus networks totally unusable, or any sort of business which has limited bandwidth to juggle critical server and office traffic through.
Now think of the implications for the internet as a whole, with the FCC taking control of it, people clogging the networks with port scans, bitttorent, ect will suddenly have laws put in place instead of just business policies. I guarantee you, (save this post for later) that bandwidth will not increase or at least not fast enough to handle the "uncorked" flow of traffic that will flood all aspects of the internet. And because of that, the government will then have to put band-aid fixes in place in the way of "LAWS" that make certain applications, protocols ect illegal. Next the FCC will need to start invading your privacy while looking for offending packets of data. How long until we see them set up a massive server farm that just monitors all traffic looking for people violating their laws? (Sure some department might be doing this now, but at least they have to hide the fact they are.. But NN opens the door for someone to make it legal).
NN is going to open the doors for a whole slew of really ugly things no one is really thinking about.
Remember, NN is a government fix to a government created problem. Most monopolies in the ISP market are LEGAL and given to them by the government, You end that practice and you will see all sorts of third party ISPs pop up. Almost every area I have lived in, many rural (northern AZ, So-Cal inland, ect) have some mom and pop that came up with an innovative solution to bring internet to people whom didn't have it. Even after DSL was brought in, those independent location are still doing well. They purchased the T1s, setup the 5.4ghz relay system and made money.
Please think this through with your head, and not just ZOMG 1 n33d b3tt3r CoD ping t1mes foh moh h3ad sh0ts!
Re:Choices (Score:3, Interesting)
What's more, a decade ago we had a rash of (arguably irresponsible) deregulation, showing that it's not true that, "give power to the government, they'll just try to take more". Sometimes they toss power aside in favor of pleasing their constituents (either people or companies), in order to cut their budget, or in order to abdicate responsibility.
The government is run by the people. Or at least it would be, if people were willing to step up and run it instead of whining about how much the government sucks.
Re:Choices (Score:5, Interesting)
The goal of society & government is to benefit the people, not large mega telecommunications companies.
The great populist lie. Who do you think runs the "large mega telecommunications companies"? I'm pretty sure they're run by people, not autonomous robots or computer programs. So let's restate what you're saying a bit more accurately: The goal of society and government is to benefit certain people to the detriment of other people, based on who is part of the largest group and hence has the most votes.
Your vision of the role of government sounds like mob rule to me.
Lets turn this logic around (Score:3, Interesting)
We need a TRULY free internet! (Score:3, Interesting)
Currently the FCC controls all radio in this country. And corporations control the FCC. And the government. The only solution is a digital revolution. All people need a wifi router and phone that communicate with each other ad hoc, completely cutting out the corporations and government control. Ideally each router would run an open source OS, and also be fully encrypted and onion routing. This would provide anonymity, privacy, freedom of speech, and ensure all of our rights indefinitely. Plus, we'd all have 54mb/sec speed, for free.
This would definitely work in cities, and then maybe a few good people would setup repeaters or fiber that would interconnect cities. At least in every city, the internet should be free, ubiquitous, and anonymous.
We are currently living in the digital dark ages. It's time for the digital age of enlightenment.
Re:Choices (Score:3, Interesting)
Even though it connects to the phone company, it is the ISP that defines how the packets are treated
Of course, the phone company can have problem after problem hooking you up. I work for a small ISP, but ATT does the last mile connection to the customer and we've lost countless customers because ATT keeps screwing up the hook-ups. Complaining to ATT does absolutely nothing, and we couldn't win a lawsuit (justice to the highest bidder). And ATT can easily outbid us; hell, just cut off while the case winds it way through the courts. No customers, no income, we can't pay the lawyers, we lose. We know, we already talked with multiple lawyers and none are willing to take on ATT.
Re:Choices (Score:3, Interesting)
When did Comcast throttle traffic? The only article I ever saw for that was the AP article that referenced throttling torrent
Hey, you answered your own question! Good job!
we'd all jump on our holier than thou bandwagan saying bittorrent is legit when I would challnge folks to prove that more than 3% of bittorrent is not piracy
If even 1% were legitimate, that would be enough. What ever happened to "Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer"?
And throttling, by the way, is not how we deal with piracy. We deal with it by suing, remember? It shouldn't be the job of the ISP to decide whether what you're doing is legitimate.
Net Neutrality is govt attempting to control of it's people, it's that simple.
Really? That must be why it took massive lobbying by the people in order to get the government to take it seriously!
Why should we empower our govt.? They work for us, not the other way around!
Precisely because they work for us. The media companies don't. Given that, would you rather empower the government, or Comcast?