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Old 07-13-2017, 10:20 PM   #1
xoxoxoBruce
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July 14th, 2017: Net Neutrality

Miss Cellania gives us a look at the future without Net Neutrality.

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Here's what could happen is we lose net neutrality, although I would guess that the prices would be higher. This leaves out the back end, in that websites like Neatorama (and mine) would not be able to negotiate a ($$$) deal to get onto one of those tiers. Casual websites would go completely out of business, and you'll pay through the nose for others. The money would not go to the websites, either, but to the providers. They should be classified as a utility. What can you do? Let your voice be heard.

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Old 07-18-2017, 08:35 AM   #2
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I've been squeaking about this one in the Internet section for quite a while.

We the people can shout all we want. The big companies are about to be handed their very own money-printing presses. Nothing but failure of their profit margin will change what they do!
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Old 07-18-2017, 08:41 AM   #3
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And here I though net neutrality was about packet prioritization. It turns out to be about whatever you fear. It's a bogeyman.

T-Mobile offered free music streaming for specific services - basically, hey you pay for 2 GB/month, but we know Spotify and the like use up a lot of that. We'll give you that part without worrying about the data limits.

That was apparently against this form of net neutrality where apparently the rule is things are not supposed to cost more or less for one bit than for another.
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Old 07-18-2017, 08:43 AM   #4
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If our provider ever restructures Internet billing like this, we're going back to discs from Netflix (if available), dumping cable entirely (we'll buy GoT on DVD; we've got the first 6 seasons already) and me being grateful we have hundreds of DVDs (not counting the couple hundred my neighbor has) while I also have thousands of words of non-Internet-dependent creative writing to keep occupied with.
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Old 07-18-2017, 08:48 AM   #5
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I believe I have a standing wager with you where I will pay your entire internet bill if it happens and you have to vote for Trump if it doesn't. (Not that I wanted an additional Trump vote in the land but it needed to be something to make the wager interesting)
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Old 07-18-2017, 09:15 AM   #6
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And here I though net neutrality was about packet prioritization. It turns out to be about whatever you fear. It's a bogeyman.

T-Mobile offered free music streaming for specific services - basically, hey you pay for 2 GB/month, but we know Spotify and the like use up a lot of that. We'll give you that part without worrying about the data limits.

That was apparently against this form of net neutrality where apparently the rule is things are not supposed to cost more or less for one bit than for another.
No it wasn't, that was their choice not yours, a gimmick to promote T-mobile. So anyone that wants to listen to streaming music should switch to T-mobile? And if you can't or won't, fuck you? If you don't live in the urban land of choice, fuck you? If 2GB isn't enough for you just pay more? Because they can't charge for speed they nail you for GBs?

You seem to forget you're a computer dude, the 1%, most people are not and don't even understand your workarounds you've been citing for years as evidence it's not a problem. But none of the ones you've stated solve that last mile problem for the millions who don't have a choice in the last mile.

When they came for the Netflixers, I said nothing.
When they came for the gamers, I said nothing.
When they...
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Old 07-18-2017, 09:23 AM   #7
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I wasn't the one that said it was against net neutrality to charge zero for the bits. Other people said that. But if they can charge more for specific services they can also charge less, Q.E.D.

I'm not sure why it should not be permissible for any service to offer free bits. Once it gets to the service location people offer free WiFi. That is pretty much the same thing. Go to any McDonald's or Starbucks for your free bits.

And I don't understand the complaint. I have Verizon and have plenty of bits to stream music. Frankly, we all do. Streaming music requires a faction of the bandwidth required to stream video.

The last mile problem has nothing to do with net neutrality, but there's that bogeyman again. Net neutrality is the name for whatever you fear on the Internet. If you fear last mile then call it net neutrality.
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Old 07-18-2017, 09:58 AM   #8
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Fearing the last mile is knowing that's the choke point where they have most people by the balls, where all these charges, fees, limits, and controls can be implemented. The ISPs know that and are against net neutrality because it restricts how much they can squeeze those balls, and whose.
If the ISPs raise the rates for everyone, customers can take it or leave it. If the rates are too high, enough will leave it, especially if they have an alternate, to cost the ISPs money. Profits are the end all, be all, for them. That and Net Neutrality are the only tools the consumers have.

I'm already annoyed that 25% of my bill is bullshit charges and fees. I don't stream anything but maybe youtube or Vimeo. Don't know if that counts. But I sure as hell don't want to be limited to what websites I can go to. Thankfully porn is rich and will always be there.
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Old 07-18-2017, 11:19 AM   #9
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Those fees are because your service includes legacy telephone and/or TV cable. A lot of those fees are old-school hidden taxes, like tariffs and 911. If someone were to provide you with Internet service alone, none of those would be on there. Anyone can just deliver you bits, the problem comes with dealing with local and state governments, and the systems they put in place decades ago.

At the same time, all ISPs now want to be video providers. They have a desperate need to get you enough bandwidth so that you can consume their high-priced cable services with a set-top box. That's where the big bucks currently are. Enormous bucks. That means enough bandwidth to stream porn until you get into the 4K stuff, at which point you'll have to download the videos and view them later, instead of streaming. (It'll be worth it though)

It also means it's very hard for them to block things. Impossible to block anything low bandwidth, for both technical and competition reasons. 3G service is so cheap and ubiquitous that it is built in to devices like the Kindle and people can just assume it works without paying anything. The cost is built in, but it's so low that it's invisible.

Nobody has ever outright blocked websites AFAIK. Throttling perhaps but not blocking, please list counter-examples if you have them. Here is a case where if the tech geeks can do it, you can do it. If Reddit were to be blocked I could give you a virtual private network that could access it for free. The mere fact that it's trivial for geeks makes it impossible for large networks to do. If I can make $1 selling you Reddit, Verizon cannot make $30.

And, part of the reason is that vireless is solving the last mile problem, and competition solves the net neutrality problem. And all that is possible only if the FCC handles allocation of freqencies well, and permits a marketplace to happen. Voila a problem that the FCC was actually created to solve and one it's completely allowed to work on. Nobody seems too concerned about that, I wonder why. It's a much bigger problem then net neutrality. But, once the bogeyman is here it is all we will think of.
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Old 07-18-2017, 02:12 PM   #10
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Yes most of the fees are phone, TV, and local government related, for now. The two biggest are ESPN and "local sports", neither of which I ever use. I don't want to see any more added internet. Sam Knows reports to me every month my daily up, down, lost, latency, etc, performance which is pretty good. I don't think I need 4K, no need to be able to distinguish each hair on the areola.

I think you're right about not blocking individual sites... yet, otherwise half the dark net, and much of the deep net would have disappeared. But net neutrality would prevent that in the future, keeping the pipes open to all, not just those who could pay.

OK, you can make a virtual network network to provide me reddit for a buck. What does that do for somebody in bumfuck ME, or KS or AK? Of course that's a buck on top of paying my ISP for most everything else. Or are you saying you can give me the whole net for a buck and the IPSs can't stop it from being available to you?

It seems to me net neutrality is not about a bogeyman but rather blocking a bunch of potential bogeymen. The warnings I hear are a shotgun of possibilities alerting people of consequences they haven't thought of so think well fuck it I'm not affected.
An awful lot of tech smart people are concerned about this but that may be about protecting the status quo. I don't know, but can't see how it can hurt.

I don't understand how classifying ISPs a utility affects or interferes with the FCC's role in allocating frequencies, either. We saw with the telephone how the FCC saved us a fortune with their interference in something they weren't created for originally. We've also seen an end run with the phone service which has caused these ISP monopolies. The FCC should be flexible enough and powerful enough to slow the ass-fucking of the people.
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Old 07-18-2017, 04:07 PM   #11
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There is a virtual server that serves cellar.org and, if we like, we can direct all your web traffic through that server. We can encrypt it, so Comcast (or whomever your provider is) can't even see what it is. Most people who work from home operate this way; they connect to their workplace over a highly secure connection, and all the Internet they get at that point actually comes via their work. It's kind of like a "secure tunnel". Comcast isn't going to block those types of connections; it would be ruinous to do so.

So, if Comcast willing to sell you 20GB, it often has to be 20GB of nearly anything, because blocking a *source* is really hard to do. Problem is, video is so large that the VPN will soon use up all of its bandwidth; but Reddit is text, so that is of zero concern. A picture = 1,000 words; a video = 1,000,000,000 words.

Public VPNs are currently available. They aren't used to fetch websites blocked by ISPs, because that doesn't happen. Setting up the connection can be made very simple such that even Bumfuckers in AK can do it.

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We saw with the telephone how the FCC saved us a fortune with their interference in something they weren't created for originally
Using the same interference they are also the most successful government censors in the last three decades. Good luck to us all.
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Old 07-18-2017, 07:54 PM   #12
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Comcast nor Vios has ever mentioned GB, is that something they do for VPNs as well as mobiles?
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Old 07-18-2017, 07:56 PM   #13
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It's MB, I always make that mistake. It'll be 20GB soon enough as FIOS is rolling out gigabit FIOS right now.
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Old 07-19-2017, 09:06 AM   #14
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The last mile problem has nothing to do with net neutrality, but there's that bogeyman again.
That is where history screams false.

DSL was available in 1981. Why no DSL (or other broadband) in 1990? The last mile. Net neutrality did not exist. Even Isenberger (chief scientist in the Bell Labs) in 1990 was silenced for openly stating, "The internet is coming". The last mile provider historically have stifled innovation when net neutrality did not exist.

Clinton passed the Federal Communication Act. That forced last mile providers to provide broadband (that law also put numbers to the definition of broadband). Suddenly Verizon, AT&T and others were forced to provide broadband internet due to something called free market competition. Suddenly stifled innovations from the Silicon Valley were liberated because net neutrality was the law.

How to get bigger campaign contributions? Michael Powell (an extremist) started attacking net neutrality. We should be paying $20 monthly for the Time Warner, Comcast, Verizon, et al internet. People in other countries with free market access pay that little when free market competition and innovation exists. We pay $50 (or higher) due to what Michael Powell did not 2003 to harm net neutrality.

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.

We know from history beyond doubt that the last mile providers have and are a greatest restriction to innovation and free market competition. Paragraph one makes that obvious. Restricting bit rate is part of a larger program to enrich and protect a few large providers. To destroy more net neutrality.

We know companies such as Comcast even bought software to subvert or block services they did not want on their networks (ie Bittorrent, Skype). Net neutrality enabled the FCC to expose and stop that. Last mile provider must destroy net neutrality - to make that and other 'profit increaser' possible. Profits should only increase with innovation - not service restrictions. Profits created by innovation occur when free markets are enabled by net neutrality.

Comcast is making so much money (due to alsmost no competition) as to build three largest buildings in Philadelphia, buy NBC, buy Universal Studios, and almost buy a major cell phone company. They already have a monopoly (actually a duopoly) in their phone, internet, and cable markets. Many people are now paying over $150 per month for the service. Obstruction of monopolies, of higher prices, and of stifled innovation is net neutrality.

We were denied internet access by last mile providers for almost 15 years. Last mile providers are why net neutrality laws were created. Only net neutrality liberated the internet, encourages free market competition (lower prices), and promotes innovation. Monopolies (or duopolies) stifle competition to enrich the top management and their elite friends. Enemy of monopolies is net neutrality.

UT describes good service where more net neutrality still exists. He forgets why we were denied internet for about 15 years - until net neutrality liberated the internet from 'we hate to innovate' and 'we are THE phone company' last mile providers.

Last edited by tw; 07-19-2017 at 09:16 AM.
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Old 07-19-2017, 11:16 AM   #15
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Heh, of course not. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 has nothing to do with net neutrality and doesn't even mention it. Some net neutrality rules were introduced in 2015.

~

Depending on where you are, you can certainly get Internet access over a private circuit. You're completely allowed, even in residential areas, to talk to someone like Hurricane Electric and purchase an interconnect to get the net to wherever you are. You need not get Comcast or FIOS.

You can get even a Gigabyte connection. It'll be a couple thousand a month, but here's the good news: you can resell it, as slightly-less-than-gigabyte internet, to as many people as you can connect. If you own an apartment building, you can wire the whole thing for this shared gigabyte and charge everyone in the building $20/month.

But if you find that difficult to do, you may want to hire a network admin to make sure the service is running. A tech support person to make sure people have a place to call for help. A billing department.... hmm this may mean more than $20/month to really price out.

It's hard. In 1996 I was running the tech end of an ISP and we connected people at 50K/min, 400 times slower than the average cable/FIOS connection, and charged people $20/month. But we went out of business, hmmm.
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