Net neutrality update

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Your solution is to make every road a highway. That would mostly work -- but is wildly expensive.

Total nonsense. That is what net neutrality cured. It provided consumers with 2 Mb data access when everyone was limited to about 0.04 Mb. And when that 2 Mb technology was available 15 years earlier. Net neutrality mades highways instead of stop lights.

You have again posted the myth that we debunked many times previously. Death of distance. Cost of a data transmission is same from the Cellar to NYC as it is from the Cellar to Sydney Australia. Highways also mean greater reliability. It means everything is not at 100% - repeatedly suffering from latency - faults and other problems in normal operation do not cause congestion.

Once upon a time, AT&T used your reasoning. And so Mothers Day became a serious network problem. What fixed it? Free market competition. Competitors were permitted. They concentrated on the product (ie network) rather than profits. Therefore competitors were making profits with superior service (ie Sprint's quality so clean that one could hear a pin drop). And AT&T kept selling off divisions to claim that as profits. And even kept wasting money upgrading microwave towers.

Things got so bad in AT&T that their CFO, one day, leaned over to Sandy Weil (a board member) and whispered, "We cannot meet our short term debt obligations." Rather then invest in their network, AT&T had so cost controlled everything that they could not meet payments on their three month bonds.

No problem. They were running their network at near 100% capacity most often. So spread sheets said profits had been maximized. Purpose was profits; not the product.

Yes, that happens when one uses your cost control reasoning rather than invest in the product. Net neutrality means a network that always has sufficient bandwidth. And therefore no or minimal latency. Customers paid less money to companies that were profitable.

That was until Michael Powell, et al, attacked net neutrality so that everyone can only have two internet providers. Powell's, et al reasoning - only two companies will be more profitable. And so
TV cable that once was $8 per month is somewhere well above $50 - and rising to pay for skyscrapers, broadcast networks, and theme parks.

Throttling (also called priority pricing) is what business school graduates love. Minimal network that runs at 100% and does not provide service to everyone every time. Then both consumers and content providers can be surcharged. Prices go up - because the purpose is only profits.

Satellites do something similar for completely different reasons. Priority service is not based in using everything 100% of the time. Priority is an insurance policy - for reliability - to improve the product - not profits.

A Bastille Day event being a classic example. AT&T was the only satellite operator that did not configure their birds for a major sun spot emission. Therefore both AT&T satellites were damaged.

Certain customers (ie broadcasters) sign agreements on other birds. So networks like PBS and CBS moved their network to other birds. Service remains reliable. Priority used as insurance. Not for profits.

Some less priority systems (ie ATM networks) temporarily surrendered their transponders. Priority is not for normal operation. Priority is for the rare or catastrophic event. An insurance policy or a futures contract. Profits are not the purpose - as UT's reasoning is based. The product - in this case reliability - is the only reason for responsible priority scheduling. And that only works when networks (ie highways) have enough bandwidth (roads and bridges) so that latency also is not a normal event.

As a result, some hedge funds hold transponders (that do nothing most of the time) as an insurance policy should another bird fail. IOW excess capacity (not priority pricing to maximize profits) is held in reserve to address the product - to make that network more reliable.

Priority charging, as promoted by UT, is how to increase profits without investing capital in the product. Just another way to get more money to buy theme parks and skyscrapers.

Even latency is only a problem when cost controls have diminished available bandwidth. It does not happen with net neutrality and the resulting free market competition.

It always comes down to this question. What is the purpose of a company: its profits or its product? UT advocates increases profits. Consumers then pay more to have same service. Then Comcast can buy more food companies.

[Undertoad]

My yawn is now the size of the Grand Canyon, but:

Cost of a data transmission is same from the Cellar to NYC as it is from the Cellar to Sydney Australia

No variable costs. But there are the fixed costs of the undersea cables you need to lay, in order to guarantee low latency, via always having an overage of bandwidth.

Each one is hundreds of millions of dollars, and you need multiple of them to every connection point on every continent, and you need to build enough bandwidth into them for a world that will require more and more bandwidth. Requiring you to lay new cables... they estimate, every 25 years.

Because the bandwidth requirements increase exponentially. The people require more bandwidth, but there are also more connected people. Each cable you lay to one continent increases the bandwidth requirements to every other continent.

Meanwhile, The Cellar is now located on a virtual server in Newark. Cellar to NYC is over super high-capacity circuits and it's just across the Hudson. You may see a ping of 3-4ms. Any Manhattan dwellars here?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Each one is hundreds of millions of dollars, and you need multiple of them to every connection point on every continent, and you need to build enough bandwidth into them for a world that will require more and more bandwidth. Requiring you to lay new cables... they estimate, every 25 years.

Now I feel bad as my favorite porn site is in Australia.

[sexobon]

That was not only in the grey on the improved pyramid, the yawn has it bordering on white. We'll call it: gris supérieur.

[Undertoad]

Bezos and Musk’s satellite internet could save Americans $30B a year

Competition drives pricing, and everyone is going to get two more competitors in 5-10 years.

[henry quirk]

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Bezos and Musk’s satellite internet could save Americans $30B a year

Starlink was suppose to fill the sky with many tiny satellites. But I have notices a trend. For weeks, no visible Starlinks. Suddenly, over a 20 minute period, over 24 appeared in a group. Most only in a 5 minute period. How long before these 'space out'?

Satellite constellations from Amazon, SpaceX, and Oneweb do not talk directly to handsets. These talk to ground stations. Gateways that, in turn, retransmit to other receivers.

More problems exist. Many countries have not authorized frequencies for these satellite. So ech must turn off when over certain countries.

A satellite that can talk directly to phones (as Iridium must do do) still must be quite large. And must support 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G technologies.

Companies such a Vodafone and Rakuten are working together to develop a technology that does not require ground stations.

[Undertoad]

There are only a few hundred up right now, another 60 going up on Saturday morning.

[Undertoad]

Net neutrality update:

Nothing has happened

in fact we had a lockdown in which everyone worked from home and streamed video all day long

no blocking, no throttling, no pay for play!!

So. What new political boogeymen are we worried about today, that will turn out to be nothing?

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Net neutrality update:

Nothing has happened

in fact we had a lockdown in which everyone worked from home and streamed video all day long

no blocking, no throttling, no pay for play!!

So. What new political boogeymen are we worried about today, that will turn out to be nothing?

Download 1.27 Mbps
Upload .29Mbps

Well it is the same... but I wouldn't say everyone worked from home and streamed video all day. I was usually able to stream a low quality video. I have a cell booster now which improves that option a bit (3 bars now) but we don't have an unlimited data option so that's limited.

I think most of us have too much on our plates right now for boogeymen. I guess the left has Trump refusing to leave and the right has fear of masks.

[sexobon]

Originally Posted by Griff

... and the right has fear of masks.

Well sure, for a long time the people wearing masks were either bandits or doctors and they both took all your money.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

So. What new political boogeymen are we worried about today, that will turn out to be nothing?

He fails to grasp the purpose of subverting net neutrality. It is to increase profits.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Net neutrality update:

Nothing has happened
in fact we had a lockdown in which everyone worked from home and streamed video all day long
no blocking, no throttling, no pay for play!!
So. What new political boogeymen are we worried about today, that will turn out to be nothing?

Izatso...

AT&T and Verizon both torture the meaning of the word “unlimited” by offering multiple unlimited plans. But the more expensive ones are either paired with the company’s own streaming service, or the companies degrade the quality of the video under certain conditions. These practices may give the carrier’s content an advantage in the marketplace over smaller, independent video producers.

Sprint has been throttling internet traffic to Microsoft’s Skype service, causing the video quality to be poorer than it should be, which is especially worrisome because Skype is a tool that competes with Sprint’s calling service. These are only two examples of how companies can favor their own content over competitors’ without rules forbidding this behavior.

Comcast has new speed limits where videos will be throttled to 480p on all its mobile plans unless customers pay extra.

A recent study shows that the largest U.S. telecom companies, including Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, are slowing down internet traffic from apps like YouTube and Netflix.

Verizon’s throttling of services even affected the Santa Clara County Fire Department’s ability to provide emergency services during the California wildfires. The fire department experienced slowed down speeds on their devices and had to sign up for a new, expensive plan before speeds were restored.

Redditor AbeFroman21 posted that he and his family are without power or internet due to Hurricane Florence, and that Verizon has throttled their internet access to an unusable trickle, offering to unblock them if they pay for a higher tier of service.

CenturyLink briefly disabled the Internet connections of customers in Utah last week and allowed them back online only after they acknowledged an offer to purchase filtering software.

Doesn't sound like nothing to me.

[Undertoad]

Net neutrality rules never applied to wireless service, and that's 6 out of 7 of these claims, most of which are from 2018.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Net neutrality rules never applied to wireless service,

That explains why violations of net neutrality are most egregious on wireless services.