Net Neutrality Makes Comeback in California; Lawmakers Agree To Strict Rules (arstechnica.com) 130
California lawmakers announced a deal Thursday to restore key protections in a widely watched bill to give Californians strong net neutrality protections. From a report: The California net neutrality bill that could impose the toughest rules in the country is being resurrected. The bill was approved in its strongest form by the California Senate, but was then gutted by the State Assembly's communications committee, which approved the bill only after eliminating provisions opposed by AT&T and cable lobbyists. Bill author Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) has been negotiating with Communications Committee Chairman Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles) and other lawmakers since then, and announced the results today. Wiener said the agreement with Santiago and other lawmakers resulted in "legislation implementing the strongest net neutrality protections in the nation." A fact sheet distributed by Wiener's office today said the following: Under this agreement, SB 822 will contain strong net neutrality protections and prohibit blocking websites, speeding up or slowing down websites or whole classes of applications such as video, and charging websites for access to an ISP's subscribers or for fast lanes to those subscribers. ISPs will also be prohibited from circumventing these protections at the point where data enters their networks and from charging access fees to reach ISP customers. SB 822 will also ban ISPs from violating net neutrality by not counting the content and websites they own against subscribers' data caps. This kind of abusive and anti-competitive "zero rating", which leads to lower data caps for everyone, would be prohibited, while "zero-rating" plans that don't harm consumers are not banned.
I wonder how much research they did (Score:2)
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Not interested in technicalities here, just need to get something in place. We'll sand the rough edges later.
Why does this sound so similar to "We need to pass the law to see what's in it."
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How exactly does "California Net Neutrality" work?
Does this mean traffic flowing *into* California? Or going out *from* California? Or both?
Where exactly, and *how* does this work? If a Cali company has a data center on the East Coast and wants to throttle traffic to the Midwest, does this apply? What about non-Cali corporations? Global corporations with oversea datacenters? Does CA intend to enforce 'neutrality' on anything which transits through?
Honestly, this seems more like a conceptual victory than a p
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Yeah, the courts love those sorts of tricks.
See also: Treble damages
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The first step was to alter the way an ISP and telco do their peering, internal telco software in CA.
Once the gov can make that change the gov will go for what a telco can really do.
What to stay a telco in CA?
Time to connect the state. All the areas with poor people who as a demographic cant pay for any new telco service.
They need new NN networks too.
The shareholders will have to pay to move th
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In Canada we have rules banning ISPs from zero rating or prioritizing certain traffic and we also have rules forcing the telcos to provide server to rural areas. And guess what? The telcos still make billions.
Net Neutrality is a good thing provided they get all of the rules right and don't accidentally ban something important.
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An actual law (Score:4, Insightful)
This is what legitimate policy-making looks like: draft an actual law, argue for it, put it up to a vote of elected representatives, if it passes, get it signed, then implement it.
Note how this is different than having an unelected board just make up rules that sound good.
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Except states can adopt rules that are more stringent than the federal regulations, and they do so all the time.
That is why California emissions regulations are a thing. On the environmental side, as long as your state meets the 40 CFR requirements you can then add in any regulations you want. As another example states such as Texas and Michigan have air toxics requirements way beyond what has been set Federally.
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And that prohibition is unconstitutional and will be proven so.
Westward, Ho! (Score:3, Informative)
Once again, it's up to California to show the rest of the country how it's done.
Re:Westward, Ho! (Score:5, Informative)
That's right, the telecoms will stop doing business with the largest economy in the United States. One out of eight Americans lives in California. You think the telecoms are just going to give up that market?
If anything, they will adjust their policies across the country to stay in compliance with California.
You're welcome.
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A good job for this, yes.
But in almost all other ways, California wants to be the next Illinois or Venezuela.
Illinois is probably the proper comparison. 10 years and California will be over-loaded with debt and bills they can't pay just like Illinois today.
I think you have California confused with Kansas.
California wants to make sure it's not the next Kansas.
Among other things, California has a balanced budget. Ask your Kansas friends how that Republican tax cut worked out for them.
Re:Westward, Ho! (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/Full... [ca.gov]
Scroll down to page 22 to get past all the political statements and warm fuzzies. $144B in income and rollover from last budget year, minus $138B in expenses does not yield a negative number.
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Be quiet you, all blue areas of the countries run huge deficits every good conservative knows that and any information to the contrary is just fake news like any other facts they don't like.
California is 1/4 of the US economy, they have broad ability to affect the entire US, as seen with their automobile pollution rules. Used properly this will have deep effects all the way down the internet, even to companies without operations in California because their traffic may cross California. On top of that most o
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Well, it all depends on how you spin the numbers. When we talk about the federal government, there's one giant pool of debt, largely because the federal government can print money. When we talk about the state government, there are a bunch of tiny pools of debt. We call them bond measures. Each of those is debt that
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If you consider the entire amount of the bond, then it is anything but balanced
So, if you violate all standards in accounting practices, as well as the law, you can make it out to be a deficit.
Golly, I wonder why this interpretation is not more widespread.....
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I think you're missing the point, which is that the government of California uses bond measures precisely because the state constitution does not allow it to run a deficit. The law and accounting practices aside, bond measures function in almost precisely the same way as a budget deficit, just under a different name. The only meaningful difference between the government issuing bonds and runni
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I think you're missing the point, which is that the government of California uses bond measures precisely because the state constitution does not allow it to run a defict
So you're completely unaware that no state can run a budget deficit.
The law and accounting practices aside
Nope. You don't get to throw those aside when it turns out your idea has a massive hole in it.
You are attempting to make California pay back all the bonds it has issued this year. That is a massive pile of intellectual dishonesty so that you can pretend California's in financial trouble. There is literally no legal mechanism to make that happen. "Setting that aside" is like saying "what if Germany won WWII?". You've left reality and go
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Traveling != owning property.
That said, Prop 13 is the main reason that Bay Area traffic is as obscene as it is. People who buy homes have a strong disincentive to move closer to where they work whenever they change jobs,
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But in almost all other ways, California wants to be the next Illinois or Venezuela.
Yes, all these jobs, sunshine, beaches, and breast augmentation is really terrible. I recommend everyone stay far, far away.
Nice (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
Finally California does something right in it's government
California politics has become significantly less dysfunctional since we switched to non-partisan primaries. The new system favors moderate candidates open to compromise, over partisanship and pandering to special interests.
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Finally California does something right in it's government
California politics has become significantly less dysfunctional since we switched to non-partisan primaries. The new system favors moderate candidates open to compromise, over partisanship and pandering to special interests.
That's an interesting take to call a single-party government "non-partisan" when it it is actually completely partisan in the sense that one party controls the executive and legislative branches and can completely ignore the minority party. As a result, absolutely no compromise is now needed. Of course one-party governments are in no way less subservient to special interests than contested governments, and that is true whether we're talking about California or Texas.
Furthermore, the notion that eliminating
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All that you're seeing is the GroupThink of one party rule.
We are still a mostly one party state, but centrists are getting elected, and the wingnuts are getting termed out.
Unfortunately, the course the ruling party is on will eventually lead to a Venezuela-esque ending that will be anything but "happily ever after".
The California Democratic Party is turning away from that kind of craziness. The Republicans are also turning toward the center to avoid getting shut out of the general election. The "top two" from the primary go to the general election, regardless of party. So in some coastal districts, the general election is between two Democrats.
Nonpartisan primaries are not perfect, but are a big improve
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Really? You think that making it effectively impossible for any third-party candidate to get on the ballot for the General Election is a Good Thing? There are districts in California where both of the candidates in November are going to be Democrats. Is that how you think elections should be held?
How, exactly... (Score:2)
SB 822 will also ban ISPs from violating net neutrality by not counting the content and websites they own against subscribers' data caps. This kind of abusive and anti-competitive "zero rating", which leads to lower data caps for everyone, would be prohibited, while "zero-rating" plans that don't harm consumers are not banned.
How can you tell the difference between 'good' "zero-rating" and 'bad' "zero-rating"?
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Campaign contributions usually work fairly well.
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Minimally zero-rating is used to allow you to purchase data plans & topups on your device after your data has expired. This IMO is "good" zero-rating.
"Bad" zero-rating would be AT&T not charging for streaming video from AT&TTubes or shopping on their affiliates site, etc.
Re: How, exactly... (Score:2)
And such zero-rating of traffic to affiliates is bad because...?
If I buy a data plan and get, say 2 Gigs of data a month on my device, how is making AT&T- related properties not count towards my data plan cap 'bad'? I lose nothing, I'm still entitled to the 2 gigs of data from any source I like, PLUS "all I can eat" from AT&T related properties.
I can't get free stuff because the existence of a free alternative hurts non-free competitors?
Re: How, exactly... (Score:2)
To secure market share?
If I own an ISP, and I own my own music streaming service, why can't I choose to zero-rate my music stream data? Because it puts other music streaming services at a disadvantage? When did it become my responsibility to prop-up competitors businesses?
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how is making AT&T- related properties not count towards my data plan cap 'bad'? I lose nothing
You are losing the services that do not pay extortion money to AT&T to become AT&T affiliated.
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No, he still gets to enjoy the contractual 2 gigs from those services.
1 gig. No wait, 500mb. No wait, 250mb. No wait, pay-per-use unless it's part of your "website lineup".
We've been down this road before with cable companies and the TV services they provided. We should not pretend that the same road leads to a different place.
Re: How, exactly... (Score:2)
It's not the same - the cable industry changed channel lineups once they started having to pay to carry channels.
As far as I know, I can't think of any websites that have successfully forced ISPs to pay a fee for the privilege of making their website available to their subscribers.
Re:How, exactly... (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at T-mobile's zero rating. Anyone can meet their zero-rating rules with out paying them cash. All you had to do was meet some fairly easy* technical requirements and respond to their commands to downgrade video. That's good zero-rating.
* Easy if you're building a video streaming company. Probably not easy enough if you're one guy serving videos off your home server. Although if you're that kind of person, maybe you want to tackle those as a fun project.
I'd say that making it open to all players based solely on technical, not business, requirements is a valid way to play it. With some watching to make sure teh technical requirements aren't business requirements in disguise (e.g. must use CodecX, available only from us for a license fee of Y)
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It's literally in the block you quoted.
ban ISPs from violating net neutrality by not counting the content and websites they own against subscribers' data caps.
I don't understand (Score:3, Interesting)
How are cable/telecom companies going to possibly argue that the FCC's rule preempts this when the FCC stated rather bluntly in the order repealing net neutrality that they were doing it because they do not believe the FCC has the authority to impose those regulations. The Constitution is quite clear that any power not claimed by the federal government defaults to the states. So if the federal government is abdicating responsibility for regulating telecom and cable companies, it means the states are free to do so.
You would think that after the first debacle with Verizon suing and getting everyone classified as Title II carriers would have taught the industry to be careful what they wish for. Now instead of one consistent rule across the entire country they have to contend with as many as 50 different sets of rules.
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The federal government HAS claimed power over communications. The FCCs position is that if there are to be net neutrality laws then they must come from CONGRESS. The federal government has not 'abdicated' anything.
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Re:I don't understand (Score:5, Informative)
Congress delegated to the FCC broad authority to regulate Title II communications in the 1950's, at the time this was basically telephone service because the public had come to believe this was an essential life saving service which it obviously was. But Congress also delegated to the FCC the ability to decide what constituted Title II service offerings because they understood they couldn't vote on every little new thing that came out.
During the Clinton administration the FCC voted to provide light regulations protections for "data services" as part of the 1996 deregulation of data services as the internet came into being. GW Bush's FCC went a step further in the early 00's and voted to remove all Title II protections. During the remaining years of the Bush administration and comments from leaders in the telecom sector (particularly the head of ATT) it because apparent that the new no-regulation stance gave these companies the legal ability to essentially blackmail services operating via the internet by threatening to slow down their service if they didn't pay the telecom provider a fee. This would be the death of an open internet with the Telecoms and Cable companies deciding the winners and loosers in the market. In particular it would give them the ability to "tax" into oblivion any service that competed against their own offerings. Comcast immediately took advantage of this to try to blackmail Netflix.
This birthed the net-neutrality movement and during the first years of the Obama administration they tried to implement policies to stop this blackmail with light handed regulations while not declaring the service Title II again. The FCC was then immediately sued by all the telecoms as they are almost every time they do anything and lost in court, with the final court ruling saying that without a designation that data services were Title II that congress had never given the FCC authority to regulate these services. So as a regulatory action in the final years of the Obama administration they voted to redesignate Data services as Title II and implemented the lightest regulation they could, giving them authority to review and revoke agreements like those between Netflix and Comcast where Comcast was using last mile access to toll competing services. They required a minimal amount of reporting by companies with more than 100K subscribers and took the position of not acting unless a complaint was received.
Trump upon entry immediately undid the Title II designation but then as the last sentence in the order tried to claim that this new regulation blocks state level regulation in direct contradiction to the previous court ruling. Were the FCC to try to challenge the California law they would immediately lose based on that ruling because the FCC has no authority unless it's Title II.
One of the purposes of federal regulation is to offer a level playing field across the US, when you eliminate all regulation you give the states authority to regulate it themselves. This is what the Trump administration is finding out, by trying to undo the Title II designation they opened up the pathway for States to regulate it themselves. The same has happened with EPA's attempts to undo minimum CAFE and pollution requirements put in place during the Obama administration, regulations that were heavily supported by numerous states. The result has been a dozen states passing their own and conflicting requirements creating a regulatory patchwork that makes it harder for car manufacturers.
But this is what happens when you put inexperienced nitwits or idealouges in place at these government agencies. You destroy the regulatory framework that protected these business from state level regulation. That's not a win, the problem is the right's come to believe that simply eliminating the regulation is a better idea that providing a legitimate process and negotiation with the stakeholders (businesses, state and local governments and activists) on sensible regulations that the entire country can live with that protect the business and the people.
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The Constitution is quite clear that any power not claimed by the federal government defaults to the states.
The Constitution is quite clear that, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
One of the big problems we have is that the Federal Government interprets the Constitution as you have just described, rather than abiding by what it actually says.
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Do they have the right to regulate intrastate connections?
Say a person in California is communicating with another person in California, but it's over the internet and may possibly pass through another state. (I suppose CA is one of the states where this is less likely, but...) Is that interstate commerce too?
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Do they have the right to regulate intrastate connections?
Very obviously yes. I don't see how anyone can argue otherwise in good faith.
Re: I don't understand (Score:2)
In a famous court case involving chickens, it was ruled by a federal court that a chicken raised in one state, slaughtered in that same state, and sold retail to a customer in that same state was subject to interstate regulations because the chicken that was born, raised, slaughtered, sold, and consumed all within the borders of one state influenced the sale of chickens that might have been brought into that state from out of state.
It's the same way that the previous administration argued that even though h
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I'm not familiar with your chicken case, but in Wickard v. Filburn, the High Court held that wheat that didn't cross property lines, let alone state lines, affected interstate commerce, and was therefore subject to federal regulation. Seriously--there was a quota on how much wheat a farmer could grow; a farmer grew his quota for market, and an additional amount for his own personal use. The Court held that his personal crop reduced his demand for wheat on the open market, thus affecting interstate commerc
You don't understand the FCC's role (Score:1)
You need to stop thinking about constitutionality or who-is-responsible-for-what. Those considerations are 100% distraction. If you want to make sense of FCC decisions, then you need to look at it in terms of the FCC's current purpose.
The FCC's purpose is to maximize profit for whoever pays Pai. The FCC does not have the power to implement NN because the people who bribe Pai want it to prevent NN. The FCC does have the power to prevent states from implementing NN, because the people who bribe Pai want it t
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As I understand it, it's not a ban on ISPs from breaking net neutrality, but rather an order to the state government that anybody doing business with the state of California must abide by net neutrality.
Basically, if you want any government contracts, you need to follow the regulations that they're putting forward, but you can operate in the state without them.
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As I understand it, it's not a ban on ISPs from breaking net neutrality, but rather an order to the state government that anybody doing business with the state of California must abide by net neutrality.
It's hard to know what's in this sausage because, according to TFA, the text of the bill won't be released until August. It's not passed yet, it's not even written yet. Assuming you are right, then the State of California will be getting its internet service from Comcast Government of California instead of Comcast. Different company, you know?
Also, according to TFA:
Re: I don't understand (Score:1)
You have selective memory - the Federal Communications Commission repealed the unconstitutional 'Net Neutrality' regulations saying it was in appropriate for the FCC to regulate such things, they specifically said the Federal Trade Commission was the appropriate body to oversee the issues relating to Net Neutrality.
Not just Cali, WA OR Canada (Score:1)
All your West is belong to Freedom.
It's only in the Lie-over states that you are treated like Serfs.
Wait .. Serfs had rights.
Show me the bill (Score:2)
The previous Slashdot story where the bill was gutted [slashdot.org] linked to a diff of the bill. This article just makes statements about "strong protections." I really like having access to the source code.
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TFA:
The new text of the bill won't be released until August 6 because the legislature is heading into a month-long recess, Wiener said. "It'll look different in terms of the way it's structured or ordered, but all of those key protections will be back in the bill," he said.
the jobs will just move out of CA WI is open to do (Score:2)
the jobs will just move out of CA WI is open to do any thing to get jobs.
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I keep wondering in what idiotic world does last mile connection constitute "interstate commerce".
Given that you've not quoted anything for context, and /.'s broken "parent" links that don't show parents, I'm having a hard time reading relevance in this.
The "last mile" is not interstate commerce, but when you buy Internet service from an ISP you are not getting just "last mile" service, you are getting a connection that can and usually does cross state boundaries. NN has little to do with "last mile" service in any case, since any true violations of NN take place far from the endpoints.
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See Wickard v. Filburn, as I mentioned upthread.
ATTN:California 53rd Assembly District voters (Score:3)
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Who decides what harms consumers? (Score:3)
Zero-rating that doesn't harm consumers is not banned? So as long as it doesn't purposely deliver malware? If consumers are using the site you can assume they are doing it willingly and that they are not willingly harming themselves.
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It's literally in the summary.
ban ISPs from violating net neutrality by not counting the content and websites they own against subscribers' data caps
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It's literally in the summary.
ban ISPs from violating net neutrality by not counting the content and websites they own against subscribers' data caps
If you read the summary to the very end, you would have seen:
"...while "zero-rating" plans that don't harm consumers are not banned."
which is why I asked the question, who decides which of those are not banned.
Great.. but will it blend? (Score:3)
Where is the I LIKE button ... (Score:1)
... I finally have a want for it.
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It's not the fault of your neighbor that your bandwidth is impacted. It's the fault of the ISP for not building it's infrastructure enough to handle users actually using all their available bandwidth.
Re:So everybody has to subsidize... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, nothing in the summary suggested anything of that sort. Nothing is stopping ISPs from charging heavy users for their heavy use, just as they can now. But once the user pays for their service, the ISP is obligated to provide the service. They don't get to double-dip by claiming that the payment they already accepted was insufficient and that the sender needs to pony up the difference if they want that data to arrive in a timely fashion. That's called extortion. If FedEx and Amazon agree to a contract and you then order something from Amazon, FedEx doesn't get to hustle you for money in order to deliver the package on time. They got paid to do the job and now they need to do it.
Moreover, contrary to your suggestion, this actually ensures that we DON'T end up subsidizing others. Without safeguards like these, the fees that ISPs like Comcast were trying to charge services like Netflix will inevitably be passed on to users by those services, at which point users on well-behaved ISPs (i.e. ones that don't charge these fees) will end up subsidizing the people stuck with misbehaving ISPs. Either that, or Netflix will have to add something like a Comcast Surcharge for its users who are stuck with misbehaving ISPs.
Someone ends up paying either way, but if these fees represent increased costs of business incurred by these ISPs, then the only proper thing to do is to increase the amount that they charge their customers (and accept the PR hit for having high prices), rather than illicitly trying to hide the costs by demanding that third-parties pay them for a job they had already accepted payment to do.
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Actually, they do pay. Historically, most of their content has been hosted on AWS, and AWS charges based on bandwidth used, among other things.
Where do people like you get these ideas?
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From their bosses at cable companies, I would imagine.
AWS or not, their logic is fundamentally flawed. Nobody gets bandwidth for free. Everyone, whether it is me, you, or Netflix, pays for service from their server/laptop/phone to the Internet backbone, and they pay based on how much bandwidth they use (or, in the case of residential service, by how much bandwidth they have available divided by some fixed multiplier that is determined by the average amount of bandwidth consumers use). The backbone provi
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If FedEx and Amazon agree to a contract and you then order something from Amazon, FedEx doesn't get to hustle you for money in order to deliver the package on time.
This is great news for all the people who have had to pay extra to redirect a package that UPS is trying to deliver to a place where they aren't. UPS has been paid to deliver it already. Charging $5 to readdress it enroute is a breach of contract.
Oh, wait, as a recipient of a package I have no contract with UPS.
Without safeguards like these, the fees that ISPs like Comcast were trying to charge services like Netflix
NN has nothing to do with charging other commercial operators a fee for co-locating their servers in the ISPs data center.
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This is great news for all the people who have had to pay extra to redirect a package that UPS is trying to deliver to a place where they aren't. UPS has been paid to deliver it already. Charging $5 to readdress it enroute is a breach of contract.
Oh, wait, as a recipient of a package I have no contract with UPS.
You're actually making my point here. You're paying $5 because you're paying for something above and beyond what UPS was originally contracted to perform. You established your own contract with them to perform an additional service. What additional service was Comcast providing when it demanded extra payments? So far as I've seen, Comcast was demanding additional payments for exactly what they were already contracted to perform. If Comcast wants to charge Netflix extra to colocate or whatnot, I have no prob
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You're actually making my point here. You're paying $5 because you're paying for something above and beyond what UPS was originally contracted to perform.
Nope. They were paid to deliver a package. They cannot deliver it to me if I am not where they are trying to deliver it. It is much cheaper for them to redirect the delivery -- to the same city, on the same truck -- than to deal with a non-delivery or a lost delivery.
What additional service was Comcast providing when it demanded extra payments?
Uhhh, electricity, network connection, air conditioning, environmental protection. Colo is not free, despite Netflix offering to provide a colocated server in Comcast's data center "for free".
If Comcast wants to charge Netflix extra to colocate or whatnot, I have no problem with that,
You do or you don't. I can't figure out.
Given that Netflix wasn't colocating with Comcast in the first place when Comcast throttled them and demanded the fees
Border cong
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They were paid to deliver a package. They cannot deliver it to me if I am not where they are trying to deliver it.
UPS is paid to deliver to an address. If the sender opted for Signature On Delivery, UPS is being paid to deliver to a person at an address. They never agreed to deliver to you no matter where you are. The only couriers I'm aware of who will accept payment to do what you're describing are the ones who specialize in serving legal documents to hostile recipients.
Colo is not free, despite Netflix offering to provide a colocated server in Comcast's data center "for free".
Again, Comcast wasn't providing colocation, so the payments they were demanding had nothing to do with it.
Border congestion is not "throttling".
Agreed, but border congestion has nothing t
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Huh? ISPs in the US cannot measure the usage of customers and limit it when necessary, or even make them pay for the amount of data they transfer?
Then how were they supposed to throttle based on content if they can't even throttle based on volume?
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