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Nintendo Kid posted:When people say it has no effect, we're referring to the vast majority of the forum's experience. Like if you already got service, it's not going to get you faster or better service any time soon. And if you don't already have broadband, you probably aren't on here. People that live in urban areas probably already have access to blazingly fast, consistent connections. People in less urban areas likely do not. I live within walking distance of people who still can only get dialup.
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# ? Feb 28, 2015 00:33 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 03:59 |
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ToxicSlurpee posted:People that live in urban areas probably already have access to blazingly fast, consistent connections. People in less urban areas likely do not. I live within walking distance of people who still can only get dialup. If you have a slow connection now, the change being made doesn't mean you'll get faster internet anytime soon. Your connection already exists, they'd only get money to upgrade your connection if delivering new service at higher speed to a nearby area with no service would mean upgrades for your connection as well.
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# ? Feb 28, 2015 00:35 |
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Munkeymon posted:I sort-of understood and am OK with the Sword of Damocles, though. "Yeah I know you don't like this but we could always make you loving hate it" seems like it'd be a not-terrible way to keep them in line, assuming everything holds up in court. The problem is that the "we could make you hate it" here isn't "we could make you hate it in a way that makes it better for other people", it's "we could make you hate it in a way that just makes everything lovely for everyone."
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# ? Feb 28, 2015 01:46 |
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Kalman posted:The problem is that the "we could make you hate it" here isn't "we could make you hate it in a way that makes it better for other people", it's "we could make you hate it in a way that just makes everything lovely for everyone."
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# ? Feb 28, 2015 02:33 |
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You assume that no one would activate any of the other regulations unless it was needed to curtail something else. That forbearance will always be there if it's rational and it would only be foregone if it provided a benefit. You basically seem to be saying you'd have to be insane to apply these rules unless it prevented a greater harm. I don't think you pay much attention to modern politics. E: the first problem with your thought process is that it isn't "destroy the economy bad", it's just a giant pile of mediocre shittiness bad. It's easy to try to justify if you think something else is important, and no one can fairly say "this is the end of everything" - it's just going to make things be rear end the way pre1996 telecoms were. Deregulation had some extremely good effects in telcos (and some bad ones) and is overall a decent example of why deregulation can be a good thing in some cases. Dropping forbearance would be pushing ISPs into situations much closer to 1990s telecoms than the current situation. I remember what the Internet and telephone market looked like in 1996. It sucked. I don't want to go back to that. Which brings me to the second problem with your example - you assume the entity doing the regulating is engaging in a fully rational evaluation of the effects unaffected by other pressures. If that was true, we wouldn't have gotten a title II vote, they'd have gone ahead with 706 regulation. And given this thread, I think it's safe to say there's plenty of people who would be interested in loving over telcos even if it harms other people. Kalman fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Feb 28, 2015 |
# ? Feb 28, 2015 02:42 |
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Nintendo Kid posted:If you have a slow connection now, the change being made doesn't mean you'll get faster internet anytime soon. Your connection already exists, they'd only get money to upgrade your connection if delivering new service at higher speed to a nearby area with no service would mean upgrades for your connection as well. Also it's important to note that they're not obliged to stop selling you a slower connection, just offer you the option of a faster one.
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# ? Feb 28, 2015 04:25 |
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Kalman posted:they'd have gone ahead with 706 regulation At best, the Court's opinion on 706 would allow providers to charge extra for various levels of tiered/throttled service, so long as they still delivered some minimal level of bandwidth to anyone who refused to pay the vig. That may have been the smart path for the FCC: it lets everyone claim victory, minimizes political opposition, follows judicial recommendations, generates high compliance without imposing heavy burdens, and avoids disruption of established businesses. But it's not Net Neutrality. To be fair, 706 rulemaking could also force Comcast to periodically submit a report which declares (in fifty pages of incomprehensible technobabble and legalese): "Hey, broadband customers! We've been stealthily throttling your Youtube streams to 480p in order to encourage you to upgrade to the 'Premium HighSpeed Deluxe' package. Please feel free to switch to Time Warner Cable if you don't like it. Oops, we just bought them out. Neener neener!" So it's not completely toothless. Fake Edit: I'll agree that 706 regulation would have been the appropriate choice as a stopgap measure. If there was a reasonable expectation that Congress was going to write a new statute which addressed everyone's concerns and struck new compromises in important areas, then a sudden shift in regulatory posture would be inappropriate and counterproductive. But I'll echo Sydin's sentiments - it was unreasonable to expect a legislative resolution.
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# ? Feb 28, 2015 05:20 |
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Kalman posted:If that was true, we wouldn't have gotten a title II vote, they'd have gone ahead with 706 regulation. I'm not going to claim that one is better than the other because I don't have a good understanding of the law, but isn't it reasonable for the FCC to claim this authority under both Title II and 706 and hope one of them sticks even if the other doesn't just in case?
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# ? Feb 28, 2015 08:02 |
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Munkeymon posted:I'm not going to claim that one is better than the other because I don't have a good understanding of the law, but isn't it reasonable for the FCC to claim this authority under both Title II and 706 and hope one of them sticks even if the other doesn't just in case? The thing is that the DC Circuit's decision "striking down" net neutrality explicitly said there was authority under 706, and explicitly told the FCC how to write the order in such a way that it would be upheld the next time. As someone else said, you can't write full common carrier regulation under 706 (though you can get 99.9% of the way there) so they couldn't just say "we are doing what we do now under 706 authority as well" - they were already told that they couldn't do that by the DC Circuit. So they had a choice. They could write 706 regulations which would have barred blocking, required transparency as to practices, and barred all but commercially reasonable discrimination. This approach would have been essentially pre-approved by the DC circuit. It was also Wheeler's original plan. Or they could go Title II, which bans the same things and bans unreasonable discrimination. There's not actually that much space between commercially reasonable and unreasonable discrimination, and that's the only real point of departure given the forborn rules. It also has some unintentional negative effects (like removing ISPs from jurisdiction of other federal agencies that are statutorily barred from addressing Title II entities.) This approach is almost certainly going to be heavily litigated and it is not at all a forgone conclusion that it will survive. So yeah, I think the Title II decision was a stupid approach driven by political outcry that got people nothing useful over 706 against speculative harms, in exchange for causing actual and immediate problems 706 wouldn't have caused.
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# ? Feb 28, 2015 21:02 |
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GulMadred posted:But... that makes it a more useful threat: The enaction of local loop unbundling is a good thing for the general public though. When that happens ISPs lose their monopolies and get driven into the ground by new start-up ISPs who the incumbent ISPs have to sell line access to. The reason this wasn't done was 1) to keep something in the FCC's pocket in case the ISPs turn into children again and 2) because the FCC believed local loop unbundling would slow broadband infrastructure upgrades. Trust me, if the FCC hints they're thinking about adding unbundling Comcast will be the first to fix its practices because it would go bankrupt if everyone could immediately leave it.
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# ? Mar 4, 2015 14:25 |
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axeil posted:The enaction of local loop unbundling is a good thing for the general public though. When that happens ISPs lose their monopolies and get driven into the ground by new start-up ISPs who the incumbent ISPs have to sell line access to. This has not been the experience with local loop unbundling anywhere it was tried. It didn't work with US DSL, it didn't work with unbundled local loops in the UK, etc.
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# ? Mar 4, 2015 20:54 |
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axeil posted:The enaction of local loop unbundling is a good thing for the general public though. When that happens ISPs lose their monopolies and get driven into the ground by new start-up ISPs who the incumbent ISPs have to sell line access to. This is the story people tell, in reality in places like Canada that have done it, the incumbent line owner is able to simply not support anything they don't want their nominal "competitors" doing on the lines. You might remember, this is still the law for DSL in the US most of the time, but most people are still using their default phone company for said DSL service. Since the other providers can't really offer faster speeds, can barely offer lower prices, and have little control over getting priority repair work done.
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# ? Mar 4, 2015 20:59 |
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http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/03/republicans-internet-freedom-act-would-wipe-out-net-neutrality/ Freedom freedom freedom freedom!!!
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# ? Mar 5, 2015 18:57 |
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RuanGacho posted:http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/03/republicans-internet-freedom-act-would-wipe-out-net-neutrality/ Jesus christ republicans let it go already.
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# ? Mar 5, 2015 19:48 |
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cr0y posted:Jesus christ republicans let it go already. The bill is almost certainly doomed to die, too. If the latest DHS funding showdown taught us anything, it's that even with their marginal majority Republicans can't push anything through without at least some Democratic support, and I very much doubt that'll happen here. Particularly in the senate.
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# ? Mar 5, 2015 19:55 |
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Dear lord, how long until that bill fails and we hear Republicans screaming at their opponents during elections "YOU VOTED AGAINST THE INTERNET FREEDOM ACT WHY DO YOU HATE FREEDOM?"
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# ? Mar 5, 2015 20:13 |
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Hope someone has the balls to answer that truthfully and call the bill bullshit with a pretty label. Lipstick on a pig is so 2012
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# ? Mar 6, 2015 01:10 |
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So this might be deserving of its own thread but I feel like they are somewhat related (especially since I stumbled upon it while looking at articles about the NN ruling): Does anyone know more about Wheeler supposedly trying to reclassify Netflix et al. as MVPDs? I guess the hook here is that if he's successful it would give them the same right to negotiate to carry broadcast television that the satellite providers do. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2471223,00.asp http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shelly-palmer/a-la-carte-cable-is-almos_b_6095438.html Is this legit or is this nerds getting excited about something that will never happen? Jarmak fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Mar 7, 2015 |
# ? Mar 7, 2015 15:56 |
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It's legitimately something the FCC is considering. That doesn't mean it will happen, but it's a definite possibility. It's something that's been mulled over internally at the FCC over the past few years so I'm not surprised there are starting to be some more public rumblings. (But Wheeler is a cable lobbyist, he will never do anything that might hurt the cable industry!!!)
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# ? Mar 7, 2015 16:49 |
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Jarmak posted:So this might be deserving of its own thread but I feel like they are somewhat related (especially since I stumbled upon it while looking at articles about the NN ruling): That sound you hear is ESPN making GBS threads itself in terror.
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# ? Mar 7, 2015 21:32 |
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Evil Fluffy posted:That sound you hear is ESPN making GBS threads itself in terror. ESPN won't care. It's not like Netflix could say "you must let us carry ESPN" - it's more that they can force ESPN to negotiate and (if I remember correctly) ESPN can't ask them for too much more than they ask cable providers for. ESPN will get their money regardless.
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# ? Mar 7, 2015 21:43 |
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Jarmak posted:Is this legit or is this nerds getting excited about something that will never happen? As someone who hasn't bought cable TV for a decade, I'm so ready for this. I was legit surprised to see this FCC make meaningful net neutrality decisions, so I'm intrigued. I've been paying attention to politics for some time now, so I'm not holding my breath. We all know what the opposite of progress is.
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# ? Mar 7, 2015 22:45 |
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Pyroxene Stigma posted:As someone who hasn't bought cable TV for a decade, I'm so ready for this. As someone who has only bought cable for sports for a long time the idea of seeing the equivalent of NHL gamecenter not blacked out local would be the end of my cable subscription
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# ? Mar 7, 2015 23:36 |
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This would also probably make ESPN go the way of the WWE's subscription service because ESPN cable fees are enough that people who don't watch the channel frequently would drop it in a heartbeat if they could save that money.
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# ? Mar 7, 2015 23:51 |
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Evil Fluffy posted:This would also probably make ESPN go the way of the WWE's subscription service because ESPN cable fees are enough that people who don't watch the channel frequently would drop it in a heartbeat if they could save that money. It would only occur as part of something that was as expensive as cable and got you every Disney owned channel for that reason.
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# ? Mar 8, 2015 00:00 |
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Evil Fluffy posted:This would also probably make ESPN go the way of the WWE's subscription service because ESPN cable fees are enough that people who don't watch the channel frequently would drop it in a heartbeat if they could save that money. ... Except that a LOT of people watch ESPN. You're making the mistake of thinking that ESPN channel fees are high unjustifiably. ESPN can afford to charge those fees because cable operators know that ESPN is the main reason a lot of people still have cable.
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# ? Mar 8, 2015 00:03 |
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Kalman posted:... Except that a LOT of people watch ESPN. Yeah but isn't a lot of that because ESPN signs things where only ESPN can carry certain leagues or events? If memory serves they have a contractual monopoly on a lot of things. Your choices are ESPN or lolfuckyou.
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# ? Mar 8, 2015 00:16 |
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Yeah but isn't a lot of that because ESPN signs things where only ESPN can carry certain leagues or events? If memory serves they have a contractual monopoly on a lot of things. Your choices are ESPN or lolfuckyou. The FCC's potential proposal wouldn't change that, though. Your choices would still be ESPN or go gently caress yourself, you'd just have more ways to get ESPN.
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# ? Mar 8, 2015 00:22 |
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Yeah but isn't a lot of that because ESPN signs things where only ESPN can carry certain leagues or events? If memory serves they have a contractual monopoly on a lot of things. Your choices are ESPN or lolfuckyou. I remember a few years ago reading that the main reason behind ESPN U existing is they realized they bought the rights to so much stuff they literally didn't have enough time to air everything. Watch ESPN (their online arm) is amazing with all the crap they have available to watch. A lot of it is low-end college athletics, but sometimes they have cricket and other stuff.
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# ? Mar 8, 2015 00:59 |
The pessimist in me is picturing this happening and the price of netflix increasing by 10000% as they start paying to carry broadcast TV but get forbidden from offering a la carte TV channel options.
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# ? Mar 8, 2015 01:59 |
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hailthefish posted:The pessimist in me is picturing this happening and the price of netflix increasing by 10000% as they start paying to carry broadcast TV but get forbidden from offering a la carte TV channel options. Traditional TV channels are dumb though because most people don't care about whatever is cheap enough to syndicate at 2am, they want a specific show or genre. The most you'll see in that direction are "live" events (traditional live stuff like sports but also whenever a new episode of a show comes out) which are then available later too.
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# ? Mar 8, 2015 02:02 |
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computer parts posted:Traditional TV channels are dumb though because most people don't care about whatever is cheap enough to syndicate at 2am, they want a specific show or genre. The FCC ruling would not apply to on-demand, because they're looking at online providers of linear streams (continuous streams of content). One of their questions is about whether a provider which was linear/pre-scheduled, but only occasionally (e.g., a "channel" that only showed SF Giants games but showed them only in real time and was off air in between) should be treated as an MVPD, but there was no suggestion that OTT on demand services would get MVPD classification.
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# ? Mar 8, 2015 02:06 |
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HBO Go is going to change the way we pay for content. I've been waiting for this to happen for decades.
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# ? Mar 8, 2015 02:12 |
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hailthefish posted:The pessimist in me is picturing this happening and the price of netflix increasing by 10000% as they start paying to carry broadcast TV but get forbidden from offering a la carte TV channel options. That doesn't make sense, it's impossible to be forbidden from offering that. One of the main reasons cable companies do that is that many channels are offered to the cable company essentially free so long as your subscriber is also paying for X and Y major channels that have fairly hefty ($0.50+ per subscriber) fees charged to carry them. For instance, carrying just ESPN requires your average cable provider to pay ESPN $4.69 per subscriber, and if you want the other ESPN channels alongside they'll charge $5.82 each. So let's say they start offering ESPN, Disney & Hearst will probably want them to also carry several other Disney & Hearst owned channels.
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# ? Mar 8, 2015 02:18 |
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Kalman posted:The FCC ruling would not apply to on-demand, because they're looking at online providers of linear streams (continuous streams of content). Yeah but what's to keep Netflix from offering a la Carte access to broadcast content if this goes through? Sure it might not mean I can get shows on demand but even if I'm paying 20$ a month just for a linear stream of NESN for the Bruins games I just cut my cable bill by more then 2/3rds.
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# ? Mar 8, 2015 04:53 |
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Absolutely nothing, but there won't be some kind of cost savings compared to cable. For the same reasons cable bundles, you'll likely see Netflix bundling.
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# ? Mar 8, 2015 06:02 |
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If you want ESPN, you're paying for everything under the ESPN/ABC/Disney corporate umbrella and that's quite a bit. It'll be the same thing with "Discovery Networks". Just look at all that programming. Enjoy whatever TLC sinks to next after Honey Boo Boo.
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# ? Mar 8, 2015 07:49 |
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Kalman posted:Absolutely nothing, but there won't be some kind of cost savings compared to cable. For the same reasons cable bundles, you'll likely see Netflix bundling. What would force a change from their present model? Cable already bundles but Netflix doesn't. What do you believe will change their outlook?
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# ? Mar 8, 2015 08:14 |
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FAUXTON posted:What would force a change from their present model? Cable already bundles but Netflix doesn't. What do you believe will change their outlook? ... So you think you can ask Netflix to give you a subset of their on-demand library? Netflix bundles already. Why would they change?
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# ? Mar 8, 2015 09:17 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 03:59 |
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Kalman posted:... So you think you can ask Netflix to give you a subset of their on-demand library? Because Netflix isn't tiering their streaming service now, nor are they offering content packages. Claiming their current offering is a "bundle" is being intentionally obtuse.
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# ? Mar 8, 2015 09:43 |