July 14th, 2017: Net Neutrality

[Undertoad]

You should have access to at least five internet providers. We all only have two. Cell phones are not the topic. We are discussing full feature, unrestricted internet access.

Yes, don't include wireless because they don't have a "last mile" problem and as such defeat tw's last mile objections. All wireless is "last mile"...

Which is why 5G wireless is just around the corner and will wind up *replacing* a lot of wired Internet in the next decade. It'll be here soon enough and will provide faster speeds than current wired connections. It's not just for phones, Sparky!

(But in case you missed this as well, phones are computers.)

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Which is why 5G wireless is just around the corner and will wind up *replacing* a lot of wired Internet in the next decade.

5G is a done deal. 6G is now on the drawing boards.

Meanwhile, there is not enough bandwidth for all that demand. That is why more TV channels are even being taken away. First channels 83 through 69 were taken away. Now all channels down to 38 will be taken away meaning many TV stations must change frequency. And meaning reception of all stations will significantly decrease.

And change necessary for known current demand. Mobile cannot meet this growing data demand. Most everyone knows that. Some here should know it. Internet providers must get net neutrality eliminated today to gain control of where most of the internet will exist.

These same providers are now vying for control of the internet backbone. Which can be made even more profitable once they eliminate net neutrality. All that means higher consumer costs AND obviously less innovation.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 has nothing to do with net neutrality and doesn't even mention it.

Outright lie. That law was the benchmark that defined net neutrality.

No law or regulation says "net neutrality". The term is an umbrella that describes the many features implemented mostly in 1996 and that made the internet so innovative and successful. FCC regulations, changed by extremists for the benefit of the big data transporters, is the slow elimination of net neutrality. If we had free markets in the last mile, then 100 mbs internet would costs $20 per month.

Obviously internet is now grossly overpriced - and will sharply increase. Innovation means costs should decrease.

We know Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner, et al already have massive profits at $50 for only 20 mbs internet. (Many must pay even more for that.) We know that consumer costs will increase as they surcharge data providers. That is not even debatable.

Unfortunately, UT is entrenched in the 'we want to protect Comcast, et al' camp. UT has long denied net neutrality even exists or is necessary. How curious. Major innovators of internet technology almost unanimously agree that net neutral is necessary. And that an extremist administration wants to subvert it.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

It's MB, I always make that mistake.

Understandable, but still neither Comcast(now xfinity) nor Vios, has ever mentioned MB or GB to me, only speed.

[Undertoad]

FIOS will sometimes advertise speed as "75 up 75 down" or "50/50" or something similar, Comcast will generally advertise their down speed and they may say something like 100 Mbps. That's Mega bits per second.

So in the case of 75/75, they will transmit up to 75,000,000 bits of data per second, and receive 75,000,000 bits of data from you per second. Very roughly speaking, you can translate that to 7,500,000 characters per second.

I abbreviate that as "75 MB" but, believe it or not, the capitalization of "B" is fiercely argued over in tech weenie sectors, so even that is probably wrong. 75 Mbps is probably right.

Anyway, roughly speaking, a modern HD movie takes up about 5 Megabits of a connection, so if you have a 20 Mbps connection, you can stream four movies at a time. With my 75 Mbps FIOS I can stream 15 of them.

Or you can retrieve the entire cellar.org... 17 years of images, text and data... in about a half hour. On my 75 Mbps connection it takes 8 minutes.

If that's too slow, they are now advertising 1Gbps connections. That's 1000Mbps. At that speed, your hard drives can be replaced with online cloud and you might not even notice.

[xoxoxoBruce]

OK, I just have never heard either mention a Mb limit per month, only speed of moving it. I guess that's only for mobile?

[Undertoad]

That is only for mobile - the limits there ARE in GB (Gigabytes), although VZW is now offering a choice of either 5GB or unlimited. So the infrastructure problems that burdened wireless are slowly melting away, as the competitors do battle.

Unless one streams video, you have to be very phone-involved to hit 5GB. Retrieving all 17 years of Cellar would do it. As bandwidth gets more available places like Facebook are obviously taking advantage by offering live streaming video of your friends. (The American dream of being on television has been answered. We can all be on it at any time. Too bad we have nothing interesting to say or do!)

[xoxoxoBruce]

Hell, I'd been on both TV and radio 60 years ago when it really meant something... except to me. shrug

[tw]

Verizon had a data limit because not enough bandwidth is available in the near future. So others (I believe T-Mobile) have no data limits resulting in more customers. But then T-Mobile did not have enough customers for their bandwidth.

Curious will be how this obvious bandwidth limitation will pan out. Since Shannon's Theorum on information capacity exists. And since moving to higher frequencies is not a viable option.

In order to entrench profits, the large data transporters must subvert net neutrality today so that monopolistic prices can be set in the future as they purchase, consume, dominate more of the internet.

Give Brian Roberts credit. He sees what he needs in 10 and 20 years. He needs net neutrality destroyed.

[Snakeadelic]

So, I just got curious and went to Google. Entered the search string FCC net neutrality. Nothing else, just those 2 words and 1 abbreviation. Right now. Top headlines:

From Ars Technica: "FCC has no documentation of DDoS attack that hit net neutrality comments" with the subtitle:
"Records request denied because FCC made no "written documentation" of attack."

From PC Gamer: "More than 10 million people flooded the FCC with net neutrality comments"

From Gizmodo: "The FCC Is Full of Sh*t"
...and they're talking about the DDoS attack.

All those headlines are listed as less than 36 hours old--a 1 day ago, a 19 hours ago, and an 18 hours ago.

If the FCC is not keeping records of others' potentially prosecutable misuse of something they're desperately clutching for full control of no matter how it's labeled and packaged, WHAT IS THEIR (UNLADYLIKE WORDS HERE) JOB???

The 10 million comments have already been dismissed on the possibility that most were bot-generated just like the good old days of sexbots prowling the Yahoo chat rooms.

I'm so glad I never had kids. I really feel for public schools in areas with poor taxpayer compliance (either don't have to pay taxes because they don't make enough money or just don't for whatever their reasons). Government offices will most likely have unlimited pipelines to one another, but schools are already floundering with art and science programs vanishing faster than Arctic sea ice (and large chunks of scientifically-reviewed published material about climate change and the Arctic). If they keep forcing public schools to be nothing but standardized-test grist mills, we're going to have 2 or 3 generations of people unable to cope with job situations that don't come with a true/false or multiple-choice answer selection right at hand. In 10 years, when kids who are only in 3rd or 4th grade now start graduating, just imagine what customer service jobs are going to be like...

Those who believe Trump is an inappropriate choice for President are in for a long ride by the time we get to whoever his kids and their kids start electing.

[Gravdigr]

[tw]

Originally Posted by Snakeadelic

Entered the search string FCC net neutrality.

The Donald will tell you how to think. Don't worry; be happy.