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Government Oracle Networking The Internet United States

Oracle And Cisco Both Support The FCC's Rollback Of Net Neutrality (thehill.com) 136

An anonymous reader quotes The Hill: Oracle voiced support on Friday for FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's controversial plan to roll back the agency's net neutrality rules. In a letter addressed to the FCC, the company played up its "perspective as a Silicon Valley technology company," hammering the debate over the rules as a "highly political hyperbolic battle," that is "removed from technical, economic, and consumer reality"... Oracle wrote in their letter [PDF] that they believe Pai's plan to remove broadband providers from the FCC's regulatory jurisdiction "will eliminate unnecessary burdens on, and competitive imbalances for, ISPs [internet service providers] while enhancing the consumer experience and driving investment"... Other companies in support of Pai's plan, like AT&T and Verizon, have made the argument that the rules stifled investment in the telecommunications sector, specifically in broadband infrastructure.
Cisco has also argued that strict net neutrality laws on ISPs "restrict their ability to use innovative network management technology, provide appropriate levels of quality of service, and deliver new features and services to meet evolving consumer needs. Cisco believes that allowing the development of differentiated broadband products, with different service and content offerings, will enhance the broadband market for consumers."
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Oracle And Cisco Both Support The FCC's Rollback Of Net Neutrality

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  • duh (Score:5, Interesting)

    by viperidaenz ( 2515578 ) on Sunday May 07, 2017 @09:37PM (#54373967)

    Oracle and Cisco want to sell hardware and services to the ISP's to manage their traffic prioritization

    • Re:duh (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07, 2017 @09:49PM (#54374003)

      Came here's just to say that... Cisco is going to make a ton of money selling "quality of service" network upgrades to ISPs. Oracle is going to make a ton of money selling user tracking databases. These companies are the entrenched "industry standards" they make bank when GIANT companies do good.. startups can't afford them, and aren't their customers so screw them.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        they make bank when GIANT companies do good

        Do well. Important distinction here.

    • It literally is a shame that 5 is as high as one can mod up a comment, because in seventeen words, you've summed up the entire point.

      So I guess I'll just ask, which industry has the potential for more money? Those that depend on a NN-less or pro-NN world? I know there's not a technically correct answer to that question, but just wondering who's going to build the most clout to bribe, er lobby, our House members?

      • The curious thing about this stand-off is that if the content providers are right, and net neutrality really is necessary to ensure a level playing field in markets where competition between ISPs is insufficient, then they might not have to spend their money lobbying to the same degree. If heavy traffic users like Facebook and Netflix call the ISPs' bluff and make a public statement that under the new arrangements they will no longer offer access to their services via US ISPs that require additional fees to

        • Afaict the problem is threefold

          1. there are many people in the US with exactly one reasonable option for broadband service
          2. that option is often vertically integrated meaning if you want the broadband service you also have to take the ISP service.
          3. many of those broadband providers are in the video distribution buisness as well as the broadband buisness.

          So it doesn't matter who the user "blames", if the user can't get stable netflix streams they are probablly going to go elsewhere to satisfy.their desire

          • I suspect that would be true if it were only Netflix, as there are other video streaming services. But if it started to be, say, Netflix and a couple of the other big streaming services and one or two social networks a household uses (which still work fine on everyone's phone) then it might be a different story.

    • Big companies tend to have the budgets to oursource their solutions to companies like oracle. Many entrenched fortune 500 companies use Oracle's horrid software databases to manage their tiem and effort reporting, etc... Small companies with stronger needs to have a competitive edge go with other cheaper smaller scale back office solutions.

      • yeah, I also just realised Oracle want to make their cloud platform successful.
        Net neutrality stops them using money to make their competition slower than them.

    • Since consumers ALSO want traffic prioritized, this seems like a win-win - the actual technical people know it, the consumers know it, the only people that have not figure it out are the "techie" people of Slashdot.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Are you kidding? Even if there were a valid reason for prioritization, it will not be used for the customer's benefit. Prioritization will be used as a tool to impose artificial scarcity and extort customers.

        Prioritization may be useful if fully under control of the customer, but it has no place on the open Internet, where it will inevitably lead to higher congestion and degraded best effort performance. Investing in bandwidth is both cheaper and provides more value.

        • by Dog-Cow ( 21281 )

          To put it another way:

          End-users pay for their access. They should have the right to control what goes in and out of their personal connection.

          ISPs are paid to transfer data, and should no right to decide how that data is moved, other than dealing with technical realities of limited bandwidth (e.g. QoS).

        • Cisco knows, because it's their entire business to know, that some flows need low jitter, and bandwidth isn't an issue (voip for example, 64Kbps bandwidth is plenty, any significant jitter is unacceptable). Other flows require high bandwidth, and don't care about jitter or latency (Netflix for example). Other flows need low latency, regardless of jitter (gaming for example). ISPs pay Cisco billions to deliver the type of flow you'll want for each application.

          You can do almost nothing about any of those me

        • Re:Double Duh (Score:5, Insightful)

          by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Monday May 08, 2017 @02:22AM (#54374565) Journal
          Even so, customers do not always realise this. For example: people loved the recent offer from a European telco, where music streamed from Spotify and a few others to mobile phones would not be counted towards the monthly data allowance. Even people using a music service not included in the offer didn't mind too much; they might be disappointed at missing out on a nice deal but nothing would change for the worse for them. That idea got shot down by Net Neutrality rules which pissed a lot of people off: "Thanks to this stupid rule (worse: thanks to "Brussels"), we now have to pay for music streaming again." Which is exactly why the telco made this offer in the first place despite net neutrality rules already in place, I suspect. Riling up the masses.

          People seem to be buying the positive message from telcos about rescinding net neutrality rules, and it resonates especially well with the "we hate government intervention" crowd. "No more rules that forbid us from making you a great offer". "Less rules means a fertile ground for innovative business". They don't see or understand the negative aspects. For instance: I don't agree that investing in bandwidth is cheaper; telcos hate net neutrality because it forces them to do exactly that. It is far cheaper to not invest in bandwidth and instead prioritize traffic in such a way that the popular services still come through at a good speed, to the detriment of anything less popular. A few people might grumble but as long as Netflix and Facebook still perform well, the masses won't object. In fact they will probably blame poor performance on the shitty server of whatever service they are trying to access.
          • by Anonymous Coward

            Even so, customers do not always realise this. For example: people loved the recent offer from a European telco, where music streamed from Spotify and a few others to mobile phones would not be counted towards the monthly data allowance.

            For the companies involved it is about profit as much as anything. It is similar to how smaller ISPs are wary about investing in under served areas, since if a big one finally gets off their arse (I'm looking at you AT&T.), then their investment goes in the toilet, because AT&T's intro pricing will wipe them out.

            Basically the offers to let you stream certain services are not about making friends. The offers do two things. First they help them acquire customers. Sure it may cost them in the short

          • People seem to be buying the positive message from telcos about rescinding net neutrality rules, and it resonates especially well with the "we hate government intervention" crowd. "No more rules that forbid us from making you a great offer". "Less rules means a fertile ground for innovative business". They don't see or understand the negative aspects.

            The thing is they WOULDN'T see the negative aspects, even if there were any...

            But you are totally discounting the fact that BECAUSE of supposed "Network Neutra

      • Re:Double Duh (Score:5, Interesting)

        by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Monday May 08, 2017 @05:28AM (#54375011) Journal
        I don't know if you're a shill or simply uninformed, but you seem to be repeating the erroneous line that network neutrality prevents QoS. It is completely acceptable under network neutrality, for example, to put SIP traffic in queues with shorter or more deterministic latency. It's even permitted to charge the customer more for doing this. What is not permitted is only putting SIP traffic to the ISP's own VoIP service in a low-latency queue and putting everyone else's SIP traffic in a normal queue. It is not permitted to charge Microsoft money to prioritise Skype traffic, at the expense of other VoIP traffic. It is not permitted to penalise Netflix traffic unless Netflix pays extra to reach your customers. Which one of these do you think would be in the consumers' interest?
      • Re:Double Duh (Score:4, Informative)

        by silentcoder ( 1241496 ) on Monday May 08, 2017 @09:16AM (#54376133)

        Consumers benefit from prioritising traffic based on TYPE. They are HARMED by prioritizing it based on SOURCE. Consumers are doubly harmed when the ISPs can sell higher prioritization to sources that can afford it (since that automatically creates the incentive for ISPs to deprioritize everything else to gridlock levels).

        Only the latter is prohibited by net neutrality.

        • Consumers benefit from prioritising traffic based on TYPE. They are HARMED by prioritizing it based on SOURCE.

          That statement is inherently stupid. As a consumer, I want Netflix traffic in my house to take priority over web traffic OR YOUTUBE VIDEO that kids might be watching.

          Sounds like I want traffic prioritized by SOURCE. Sounds like MOST people would want the same thing.

          Sounds like you have no idea what you are talking about.

          • Consumers benefit from prioritising traffic based on TYPE. They are HARMED by prioritizing it based on SOURCE.

            That statement is inherently stupid. As a consumer, I want Netflix traffic in my house to take priority over web traffic OR YOUTUBE VIDEO that kids might be watching.

            Sounds like I want traffic prioritized by SOURCE. Sounds like MOST people would want the same thing.

            Sounds like you have no idea what you are talking about.

            You don't really want traffic priority by source. You want your traffic to be more important than someone else's traffic. That's not the same thing.

            If you watched YouTube Red and the kids watched Netflix, you would want the reverse. Which would really be the same, your's over theirs.

            • You don't really want traffic priority by source. You want your traffic to be more important than someone else's traffic. If you watched YouTube Red and the kids watched Netflix, you would want the reverse.

              Aha, so you ADMIT that people would reasonably want traffic prioritized by source!!! It's just a matter of figuring out which source takes priority at which time. But it is something that people WANT, and it is very reasonable, and net neutrality is trying to take away as a possibility.

              But lets be reali

              • You don't really want traffic priority by source. You want your traffic to be more important than someone else's traffic. If you watched YouTube Red and the kids watched Netflix, you would want the reverse.

                Aha, so you ADMIT that people would reasonably want traffic prioritized by source!!! It's just a matter of figuring out which source takes priority at which time. But it is something that people WANT, and it is very reasonable, and net neutrality is trying to take away as a possibility.

                But lets be realistic. No one cares about shitty YouTube quality. They just want Netflix (and possibly HBO and a few other sources) without buffering.

                I did not "admit" that people wanted priority by source. I pointed out that even YOU don't want priority by source.

                You want your stuff to be faster than others stuff, for whatever site you happen to be using vs whatever site they're using. It's not the same thing.

                ISPs already sell this difference. You can buy access at any speed they offer. If you buy 100 Mbps and others by 20 Mbps, they've sold you faster access than the other person.

                I took your use of "that kids" to mean "other users of the network",

          • No problem your ISP has their own video on demand service that works much better.

            What? You expect your own services you paid for to work well??! Pfft communist stay out of the free market.

            ICMP is designed to be high priority less chatty for broadcasts as well as video by default as errors are less important over packet prioritization.

      • Customers may want their traffic prioritised, but they also want it to be their choice which traffic.

        I wouldn't want Big Video Streaming Service paying for pipes so big compared to my VoIP provider it kills my phone calls when someone else in the house watches a video.

        What I would want is to be able to pay as a customer to prioritise VoIP traffic for the provider of my choosing (or simply pay for neutral service and do the QoS myself on my own router)

  • by Anonymous Coward

    some decision is wrong when Oracle/Larry Ellison decides to support that decision.

  • by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Sunday May 07, 2017 @10:03PM (#54374035)

    Oracle and Cisco...

    Yeah... whoever wins, we lose.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    This... is why I have stock in Juniper Networks and not Cisco. I have a moral compass that guides me when I survey the stock market. This is another reason I won't purchase stock in "One Raging Asshole Called Larry Ellison" as I refuse to pay for his lavish lifestyle as he tramples world+dog under his feet. Maybe someday the adage will change... "Nobody got fired for picking Cisco"

    Peace out.

  • by chromaexcursion ( 2047080 ) on Sunday May 07, 2017 @10:14PM (#54374059)
    I own Sisco stock. Bad investment.
    It's finally getting to where I can sell it for a gain equal to my savings account.
    I only own a little. It was part of my learning experience in the land of investing.
    At least I won't lose money on it, after 15 years.
    Sisco is crap.
    Oracle is trying to preserve a day gone by. Rather than doing something new, they're sticking to the old business model
    Sell your Oracle stock NOW!
    • by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Sunday May 07, 2017 @10:55PM (#54374159)

      I own Sisco stock. Bad investment.
      It's finally getting to where I can sell it for a gain equal to my savings account.
      I only own a little. It was part of my learning experience in the land of investing.
      At least I won't lose money on it, after 15 years.
      Sisco is crap.

      Well, there's your mistake. You wanted Cisco stock, not Sisco.
      Don't beat yourself up to badly others have made the same mistake [businessinsider.com]

      • Reminds me of that time Nintendo stock shot up because of Pokemon Go. If investors are this fucking stupid, I have no idea how the market even exists anymore. Like, why buy stock if you're not going to bother doing any research on the company/stock you are about to purchase?!
      • by Cramit ( 609487 )
        Is it wrong/abusive for me to want to start to invest in companies that have names similar to those of internet companies that have yet to go public?
      • by Creepy ( 93888 )

        Unless OP meant Sysco stock, which is a food service company with mediocre food except in their Asian Foods division (which they bought). Strangely, both have had relatively good performance over time. Cisco did tank a bit over 5 days when I checked, but over 5 years it still is pretty good growth.

      • my bad. can't type, or keep letters straight. I blame it on posting late at night.
        I own Cisco. It's still far under performing.
        I've learned my lessons. My small portfolio has far out performed all market baselines for the past 10 years.
        Though I think I may need to sell a lot soon. The idiot in charge may cause a crash. Timing is the key.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      > At least I won't lose money on it, after 15 years.

      You're not going to be happy when you figure out just how a dollar 15 years ago is not the same as a dollar today.

      • by Jzanu ( 668651 )
        USD inflation has been less than 10% per year every year since 1982 (Reagan's recession). For 1990-2007 it was less than 5% followed by a brief spike from the Bush Recession, andsince 2009 it has been less than 3% per year. See here [tradingeconomics.com]. Monthly smoothed averages are down lately, but by its nature that figure is heavily influenced by the distant past more than the recent one, so that pattern can easily reverse. Best timing is to take the money out now or as soon as you can, and put it into durable consumer good
  • shenanigans (Score:4, Insightful)

    by xbytor ( 215790 ) on Sunday May 07, 2017 @10:24PM (#54374075) Homepage

    >Cisco has also argued that strict net neutrality laws on ISPs "restrict their ability to use innovative network management technology, provide appropriate levels of quality of service,

    I don't know what "innovative network management technology" is except maybe some expensive Cisco hardware. But, QoS and net neutrality aren't incompatible. T-Mobile uses a variant where they will throttle your bandwidth after 30GB of data but only if the network is in heavy use where you are located. Which seems reasonable, unless they've changed the plan again.

  • by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Sunday May 07, 2017 @10:44PM (#54374117) Homepage

    It's fun, watching the scum self organize.

    Hint: If you are ever on the same side of an issue as ATT, it's probably time to evaluate your life's choices to see where you went wrong.

    • Honestly, I would expect Uber to jump in on this topic as they have never before missed an opportunity to come in on the wrong side of an ethical issue..

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday May 07, 2017 @11:40PM (#54374285)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by mysidia ( 191772 )

      Us Engineers are not the customers of Oracle, anyways.... Oracle's customers include companies such as ATT, Verizon, Comcast, ...... these companies don't stand to gain or lose significant numbers of customers based on their stance on any politicail issues. However, they can significantly strengthen their relationship with some of their largest customers by being a member of the anti-net-neutrality clique.

      As for Cisco...... they profit when they sell overpriced silicon and software solutions for impl

      • Actually Cisco's and Oracle's customers are managers who then leave it up to the technology people to implement their latest mistake.

    • We engineers don't usually have the final say in the matter; it's often down to whatever deal the PHB worked out ( oh, flying to the islands this weekend, Mr PHB? Wonder who paid for that ).

    • by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
      You're about a month late with your April Fools joke.. haha about choosing network vendors.. rofl.
  • Let me guess... promisses of buying new equipment infrastructure is a great incentive to sell out, right?
    F*ck Cisco. And I don't even have to say anything about Oracle, the litigious troll company. Oracle has to die in a pool of fire for the stuff they've been doing lately.

  • by TimothyHollins ( 4720957 ) on Monday May 08, 2017 @04:52AM (#54374927)

    while enhancing the consumer experience

    I'm dying to know how consumers benefit when you sell their private information. Please elaborate on this. Are you counting on them all being sadomasochists?

    • I'm dying to know how consumers benefit when you sell their private information. Please elaborate on this. Are you counting on them all being sadomasochists?

      No. Exhibitionists.

  • ...(Oracle) played up its "perspective as a Silicon Valley technology company," hammering the debate over the rules as a "highly political hyperbolic battle," that is "removed from technical, economic, and consumer reality"...

    Translation: "We're a knowledgeable and trustworthy tech company, and we know better than even the tech sector workers who create our products and services, so you should listen to us, not them. We don't like it that so many of those workers support Net Neutrality, so we're trying to pull rank. We'll also pretend that we both know and care about 'consumer reality', (even though it's patently obvious we know nothing and couldn't care less), because we'll happily polish our stinking turd of a strategy until i

  • Balls, bollocks and bullshit.
  • Nothing stifles innovation like laws, supported by Verizon/Comcast/Time Warner/ATT etc., preventing communities from building their OWN infrastructure for what should be a public utility. But, yes, it does stifle their profits, which they want to equate with innovation. Its not. Communities building a telecom network operated for the common good.. new there's innovation.
  • Just wait until someone starts lobbying to have 'golf course neutrality'. Once deals on the golf course have to have the same scrutiny as other deals, the likes of Cisco and Oracle will meet their demise.

    I can see the value of both vendors products, but what I still don't get is why anyone buys more than a modicum of it. With Oracle, the DB is fine, but once you move to RAC then you're on the bandwagon and getting off it is very hard. You'd have been better off re-engineering out your legacy when you outgre

    • Cisco is a harder nut to crack - no one would dare go up against them, but yet, if someone did, we'd all be better off as a result.

      You make Juniper very sad. Also Brocade Communications, who acquired Foundry Networks. Hell, even HP and Huawei sell enterprise routers. And the backdoor in Huawei routers for the Chinese government is no worse than the NSA backdoor in Cisco gear.

      As others have said repeatedly in this thread, "enterprise" switch gear really is a commodity at this point. Not precisely a cheap commodity, since their customers are primarily businesses so they charge all the traffic will bear, but still. Cisco is far from

  • Who cares if the people of the US are losing freedom, and getting less value for their dollar, when there are corporations who will make extra money! I, for one, am proud to become "consumer cattle" for the benefit of an ever-shrinking number of trust fund brats!
  • by silentcoder ( 1241496 ) on Monday May 08, 2017 @09:03AM (#54376045)

    And before that, a contractor to CISCO - trust me, whatever side these companies are on, on any issue, is never the side that you should support. These companies evil incorporated.

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