Can someone explain the Internet Neutrality act ?

[YES NOPE9]

I just presume that any new government powers are bad.
I don't understand what the act is supposed to accomplish....
Gus
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[Bob Blick-4]

On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:37:13 -0600, "NOPE9" <yes@...> said:
> I just presume that any new government powers are bad.
> I don't understand what the act is supposed to accomplish....


The Markey/Pickering bill is designed to set policy and limits as to how
much the internet providers can mess with your traffic. It also appears
that Congressman Markey actually uses the internet. Wikipedia has a
couple of articles about it, look for "network neutrality".

Cheers,

Bob

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[Sean Breheny]

I think the basic idea is behind net neutrality is to regulate
internet service providers (at all levels) so that they do not alter
network routing, DNS, etc. to suit their own interests. For example, I
think that today it is perfectly legal for a service provider to
direct you to joesshoes.com when you type shoes.com into your browser,
and then get kickbacks from joesshoes.com.

How likely is this to be a problem? I don't know. It would seem that
competition could prevent this - as long as you regulated agreements
between ISPs. There are probably also much more subtle aspects like
search engine results.

Sean


On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 11:37 AM, NOPE9 <yes@...> wrote:
> I just presume that any new government powers are bad.
> I don't understand what the act is supposed to accomplish....
> Gus
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[Marcel Birthelmer-2]

I think DNS aspects are mandated by ICANN, the governing body that
controls the .com/.org/.net domains . Net neutrality is more a factor
in traffic shaping - for example, VOIP traffic being prioritized over
bit torrent. While this may seem like a good idea, there is some
concern that some ISPs would prioritize their own content over that of
outside providers, so that accessing a server that is connected to
another ISP is slower or downright impossible. Australia already deals
with this, since there seem to be only one or two providers that
control the international backbone to the country.

On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 6:01 PM, Sean Breheny <shb7@...> wrote:

> I think the basic idea is behind net neutrality is to regulate
> internet service providers (at all levels) so that they do not alter
> network routing, DNS, etc. to suit their own interests. For example, I
> think that today it is perfectly legal for a service provider to
> direct you to joesshoes.com when you type shoes.com into your browser,
> and then get kickbacks from joesshoes.com.
>
> How likely is this to be a problem? I don't know. It would seem that
> competition could prevent this - as long as you regulated agreements
> between ISPs. There are probably also much more subtle aspects like
> search engine results.
>
> Sean
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 11:37 AM, NOPE9 <yes@...> wrote:
>> I just presume that any new government powers are bad.
>> I don't understand what the act is supposed to accomplish....
>> Gus
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[Harold Hallikainen-2]

>
> On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:37:13 -0600, "NOPE9" <yes@...> said:
>> I just presume that any new government powers are bad.
>> I don't understand what the act is supposed to accomplish....
>
>
> The Markey/Pickering bill is designed to set policy and limits as to how
> much the internet providers can mess with your traffic. It also appears
> that Congressman Markey actually uses the internet. Wikipedia has a
> couple of articles about it, look for "network neutrality".
>
> Cheers,
>
> Bob

I think a large part of the problem is that the FCC has decided that
Internet Service Providers are "Information Services" instead of common
carrier type "Communications Services." An Information Service is like a
publisher who may determine what it wants to publish. A common carrier
must carry all traffic indiscriminately. AT&T has suggested they should
charge Google since so much of the traffic AT&T carries is Google traffic.
Of course, it is AT&T customers who are requesting that traffic, so it
appears those are the people who should be charged (Google is paying for
their end of the "circuit"). I think the ISPs are trying to avoid tiered
pricing where they charge by bits transferred so they can stay price
competitive. So, they're looking for money elsewhere. That may include
providing better speed on services that pay them (partnerships with
content providers). It may also include blocking or slowing down competing
services (VoIP or Internet Television). I think ISPs should be common
carriers and charge for the bits transferred. As it is now, low usage
customers are being overcharged. High usage customers are either being
undercharged or disconnected when they pass some undisclosed number of
bits per month.

Harold



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[M.L.-2]

On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 12:01 PM, Sean Breheny <shb7@...> wrote:
> How likely is this to be a problem? I don't know. It would seem that
> competition could prevent this - as long as you regulated agreements
> between ISPs. There are probably also much more subtle aspects like
> search engine results.
>
> Sean

Yes, competition would fix it if most people had access to alternate
services that were equivalent in features.
In most places there is no real competition. If you are rural enough
not to get cable TV your option is probably DSL from the phone
company. They charge line fees so that competitors cannot compete on
price. Cable companies have similar deals. My area (Brookline, MA) is
of an extremely rare type in the US because I have three options -
municipal wifi, cable, and DSL. The DSL is slow, the cable is
expensive, and the WiFi is spotty. We should be able to get FIOS soon.
(expensive too)

If you have monopolies I don't see how it is fair, prudent, or
intelligent to not have government regulation.

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[Sean Breheny]

Hi,

That is sorta what I meant by "as long as you regulated agreements
between ISPs", although that is a bit vague, I admit. Service
providers should not be granted monopolies by the town, and they
should not be allowed to form trust-like agreements to limit
competition. In a situation where only one set of lines can be run,
the company who is going to run them should be required to offer
bandwidth to competitors at a fair market rate.

On a population basis, though, I think that most people in the US have
at least two internet service options (DSL and cable). I know that I
at least have those two options (Lexington MA), and I believe that I
have more than one cable option on top of this. Every place I have
lived in the US had at least these two options (Ithaca NY - New York,
NY, - Philadelphia, PA - Lexington, MA - Scranton, PA)

Sean


On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 10:35 AM, M.L. <m@...> wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 12:01 PM, Sean Breheny <shb7@...> wrote:
>> How likely is this to be a problem? I don't know. It would seem that
>> competition could prevent this - as long as you regulated agreements
>> between ISPs. There are probably also much more subtle aspects like
>> search engine results.
>>
>> Sean
>
> Yes, competition would fix it if most people had access to alternate
> services that were equivalent in features.
> In most places there is no real competition. If you are rural enough
> not to get cable TV your option is probably DSL from the phone
> company. They charge line fees so that competitors cannot compete on
> price. Cable companies have similar deals. My area (Brookline, MA) is
> of an extremely rare type in the US because I have three options -
> municipal wifi, cable, and DSL. The DSL is slow, the cable is
> expensive, and the WiFi is spotty. We should be able to get FIOS soon.
> (expensive too)
>
> If you have monopolies I don't see how it is fair, prudent, or
> intelligent to not have government regulation.
>
> --
> Martin K.
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[Carl Denk-2]

Daughter lives in a western Cleveland, Ohio suburb,  It's non
competitive, 1/4 mile East across the county line. in the other county,
and all kinds of competition. :(  I am semi rural, use the Telephone
DSL, they have a message, including attachments of 200M, a real bummer.
We also have Directv. Cable from Time Warner is available, but don't
care for the TV available. Cable internet is expensive if not bundled
with TV.

M.L. wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 12:01 PM, Sean Breheny <shb7@...> wrote:
>  
>> How likely is this to be a problem? I don't know. It would seem that
>> competition could prevent this - as long as you regulated agreements
>> between ISPs. There are probably also much more subtle aspects like
>> search engine results.
>>
>> Sean
>>    
>
> Yes, competition would fix it if most people had access to alternate
> services that were equivalent in features.
> In most places there is no real competition. If you are rural enough
> not to get cable TV your option is probably DSL from the phone
> company. They charge line fees so that competitors cannot compete on
> price. Cable companies have similar deals. My area (Brookline, MA) is
> of an extremely rare type in the US because I have three options -
> municipal wifi, cable, and DSL. The DSL is slow, the cable is
> expensive, and the WiFi is spotty. We should be able to get FIOS soon.
> (expensive too)
>
> If you have monopolies I don't see how it is fair, prudent, or
> intelligent to not have government regulation.
>
> --
> Martin K.
>  

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[Bob Blick-4]

On Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:43:16 -0400, "Carl Denk" <cdenk@...>
said:
> Daughter lives in a western Cleveland, Ohio suburb,  It's non
> competitive, 1/4 mile East across the county line. in the other county,
> and all kinds of competition. :(  I am semi rural, use the Telephone
> DSL, they have a message, including attachments of 200M, a real bummer.
> We also have Directv. Cable from Time Warner is available, but don't
> care for the TV available. Cable internet is expensive if not bundled
> with TV.

I thought the network neutrality act had more to do with treating
traffic neutrally rather than tariffs and availability.

For instance, if AT+T decided to purposely slow traffic to/from Google
and give preference to Yahoo's data.

Cheerful regards,

Bob

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