Flatfingers wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 1:07 am
I disagree. Just because something is a desirable public good does not automatically qualify it as a public utility (to use the correct full term).
but a necessity to modern life which requires expensive, complex and
cooperating infrastructure to work at all.
and to which everyone has to have an as unrestricted as possible access to for it to have the optimal economic effect.
and if you yourself arent viewing it at personal necessity for your life, try cutting the access of your workplace and see what happens.
modern society
doesnt work without it.
at all.
its a necessity for businesses and private persons in the modern age.
Flatfingers wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 1:07 am
It's a finite
natural resource needed for life and prosperity
we can also mine glaciers for water, build desalination plants and build condensers.
doesnt remove the fact that its limited either, same as connectivity and electricity.
Flatfingers wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 1:07 am
I think a similar argument applies now, or close enough to now, to broadband. ISPs need to pay for servers, not unlike power plants... but the cost for adding web server capacity and broadband management software is orders of magnitude less than the cost of producing more power, especially from coal and nuclear. And we can see this cost differential increasing even more as cloud services continue to explode; there's no way this technology -- delivered by private enterprise -- doesn't continue to get faster, cheaper, and more reliable for the foreseeable future. (There's already competition in cloud services, too.)
dont confuse services that run on the network with the network.
a server is just someone's disconnected computer withtout the network.
cloud services are a pretty independent type of provider for the discussion we are having here as well. they provide computing space, not networking to your end point.
changing software on some sever doesnt change the tiniest bit about the connection's bandwith between it and an endpoint (beyond some efficiency optimisations, like multipath TCP)
Flatfingers wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 1:07 am
The cost for distributing electricity versus broadband is also vastly different, and that difference is also increasing. While many homes are still wired, wireless Internet access (through cellular or satellite) is clearly preferred by both consumers and ISPs, and so it too is likely to accelerate as the means of distributing broadband services, further lowering the cost of access for consumers.
yeah... no.
the last mile wireless connection is the equivalent of the cable from your basement up to your devices.
important, but a very tiny insignificant part of the network behind it.
lets look at the traceroute output from my home computer to the university of houston (you live in houston iirc? so i'll assume that as representative of the amount of middlestations between you and me)
Code: Select all
>tracert uh.edu
1 13 ms 8 ms 9 ms ---.---.---.--- <- switch in my street
2 20 ms 20 ms 19 ms lg1-1171.as8447.a1.net [195.3.64.2]
3 20 ms 20 ms 21 ms xe-1-2-0.mpr1.fra4.de.above.net [80.81.194.26]
4 124 ms 124 ms 137 ms ae27.cs1.fra9.de.eth.zayo.com [64.125.30.254]
5 123 ms 123 ms 124 ms ae0.cs1.fra6.de.eth.zayo.com [64.125.29.54]
6 124 ms 124 ms 124 ms ae2.cs1.ams17.nl.eth.zayo.com [64.125.29.59]
7 125 ms 124 ms 124 ms ae0.cs1.ams10.nl.eth.zayo.com [64.125.29.80]
8 124 ms 124 ms 123 ms ae6.cs1.lhr11.uk.eth.zayo.com [64.125.29.77]
9 124 ms 124 ms 123 ms ae5.cs1.lga5.us.eth.zayo.com [64.125.29.126]
10 125 ms 142 ms 124 ms ae4.cs1.dca2.us.eth.zayo.com [64.125.29.203]
11 124 ms 128 ms 124 ms ae3.cs1.iah1.us.eth.zayo.com [64.125.29.49]
12 124 ms 129 ms 124 ms ae6.er2.iah1.us.zip.zayo.com [64.125.29.131]
13 124 ms 124 ms 123 ms 64.125.143.21.IPYX-069784-ZYO.zip.zayo.com [64.125.143.21]
14 123 ms 124 ms 124 ms asmi.technology [129.7.97.54]
(i edited out the traces into nothing, the ones in my local network and IPs that could get you my private address)
and that arent even all the segments that actually exist inbetween, because the 2 hops from my PC to the switch in the road didnt show up. neither do the dozend other switches between there and the regional switch. neither the hundreds of other switches between the other segments.
every single of those connections is a glass fiber cable.
if you get a wireless home connection the very first one of those isnt a physical wire.
the rest of the network is still there and has to be dug out and wired through to work.
and that isnt going to become any less in the future.
if then its going to become even more with the switch to ever smaller cells (microcells) which are then themself wired up.
because the spectrum crunch is a real thing, and the smaller the cells are the more RF bandwith each has available to provide service with.
you'll see less wires on the end devices. but everything else is going to get packed ever denser with cabling.
yes, the last mile isnt free if you wire it up.
but just ignoring the whole backhaul network and claiming that new ISPs can just use wireless connections instead is
Flatfingers wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 1:07 am
an assumption that is both large and false
because the backhaul is wired. because nothing else has the capacity and reliability needed.
yes there are some backhaul sections that are run with wireless links. but the locations that are suitable for large scale microwave backhauls are limited and far from "just use a wireless tower!" as well
and without large scale space infrastructure i wont even acknowledge satellite as a viable alternative to cables. because satellites cost many millions apiece, have limited bandwith and produce gigantic latencies in their current form.
sats are a way to supply areas that arent supplyable otherwise, not a default backhaul.
Flatfingers wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 1:07 am
Broadband is not a physical natural resource; it's not even remotely as finite as water or electricity
but the wireless spectrum is a very much limited and very much physical natural resource.
over which very fierce bidding wars are being fought. and ISPs encroaching on the ISM bands (which everyone can use under some non-interference conditions) in a desperate attempt to get a bit more data rate
and a hard push to [get rid of]/[compress] the wasteful TV broadcast frequency space to make room for wireless internet
of course we are developing ever more efficient ways to use that limited natural resource, that doesnt remove the fact that its limited and has to be tightly regulated to enable everyone to have an at least workable connection.
Flatfingers wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 1:07 am
If broadband doesn't merit being rationed by a commission, then those who still want to defend net neutrality turn next to asserting that ISPs will censor content or financially disfavor certain content sources, to insisting that these things are wrong somehow, and to declaring that protecting consumers requires government regulators to impose content and price controls on all ISPs. Let's look at that next.
you mean "asserting" like
tal did the last time around we had this discussion?
with links and sources on to where it actually happened?
and go ahead, show me where its not bad that private companies can determine what business im allowed to run?
because if i want to run a service thats not in favour of the local ISP im screwed. because they'll either want an additional protection racket on top of the connection fees or just quietly drop every other packet of my traffic and artificially degrade my QoS
both of which they already did. to netflix for example.
Flatfingers wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 1:07 am
The problem with this is it makes an assumption that is both large and false: that ISPs are all anti-consumer, and there's no escape from their wicked censorship without intervention from benevolent and wise federal regulators.
they have
shown that they'll utilise their powers without restraint if they think they'll get away with it
as per tals link collection which you, oh so fairly and wisely, completely ignored.
Even if markets aren't entirely free (and shouldn't be), they're not that broken. Yet.
Flatfingers wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 1:07 am
If I can choose among several ISPs (which is encouraged by carefully limited but effective anti-competitive practices regulation), there is no need to tell them they can't censor whatever content they want. Let 'em! If you don't like one ISP's rules, switch to a different ISP. Or if you're really ticked, and you're totally certain that there's an enormous market opportunity for an ISP that offers a completely "fair and even market and platform for speech," you (in an economically functional nation) can start your own ISP company.
Flatfingers wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 1:07 am
I don't claim it would be easy, or cheap. But why do we pretend it's impossible? This idea that people are helpless to solve their own problems and to cooperate to satisfy their own desires, and that the first recourse of citizens should be to appeal to distant bureaucrats, is dangerously wrong and deserves to be disputed.
go ahead, organise a fundraiser for some tens-to-hundreds of billions of dollars to pull a competitive ISP out of the ground.
because bemoaning people not being able to do stuff implies that
you can do it. prove it.
Flatfingers wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 1:07 am
But it's also irrelevant to the question of the FCC insisting it has the power to force or prevent what is, yes, the legal, normal, and necessary business practice of deciding how much to charge for products and services.
ask for whatever amount of money you want for your service.
but dont intruduce arbitrary distinctions (packets from location A being different than packets from location B) and then remove that distinction for an extra fee.
because that distinction
only exists to extort more money out of people
and to put competitors at a direct disadvantage.
not a disadvantage by having the better offer (ISP video instead of netflix for example) but by
sabotage and active interference with their legal business.
and have people not being able to get a better offer because you are the only viable source of any form of service in the first place
Flatfingers wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 1:07 am
If your point really is that people entrusted with state power should dictate business practices or individual behavior based not on law applicable to everyone (which while imperfect is still the best way we know of maximizing happiness in a free society) but on their personal beliefs about what is moral, then yes, we most certainly do have a difference of opinion.
i dont want regulation either, dont get me wrong.
BUT
if the good of pretty much any and all businesses on the web needs regulation of companies that build and maintain infrastructure i'll do it without much second thought.
(how to do it is a point we can happily discuss about, i'll gladly agree on the currently discussed NN regulations not being optimal. but i prefer them greatly over the hope for benevolent corpocraty. especially as those corporations have already shown that they arent benevolent)
Flatfingers wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 1:07 am
Whew! For saying I see no value in further discussing this, I sure seem to still be commenting here.
I think I'm done again now, though. I might poke my head in to read comments, but probably won't have any more to say on it beyond this last novel.
No, really.
Stop laughing!
you arent alone with that problem