Net Neutrality is Not Neutral and it Will Radically Change The Internet

[Anchor]

Ilie,

You can supply or buy pipes that are as large as you want or need.

What you as an ISP cant do is prioritize traffic between different endpoints based on charging a fee (or taking a fee from a content provider) based on any criteria at all.

So, if you providing access over the public internet to your cloud, you cant give your service preferential priority over other peoples traffic that you as an ISP must route to me if I want it with no imposed bias.

You can however sell me the capacity on your own terms over a private network - which for "serious" services is what normally happens anyway.

John..

[Ilie Pandia]

So then, if my ISP has subscription levels, and when you pay more you have more speed (larger pipes) that would be illegal now in the states?

I am obviously confused as to when is OK to use small/larger pipe and when this is not OK.

You seem to be saying this:

1. I have a paid subscription to my ISP that gives me say 2MB/s top speed.
2. Within that speed however, none of the content providers are allowed to be prioritized. So for example Vimeo and YouTube (Google) would have the same fair chance to fill up the speed if I open a tab with both of them.

Is that about right?

And the "problem" would be if say Google would pay to have their traffic prioritized and Vimeo would not, then even if I have large pipe, Vimeo would still crawl while Google would be lightning fast.

Did I get this? If not, can you give me some examples ?

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Ilie Pandia (here)
If I create a company that offers cloud storage and backup services and I need to offer my clients the ability to have a high speed upload/download link so they can access that storage and backups any time they need I will no longer be able to do that, because I cannot pay to have a larger bandwidth?

Ah - no - if you are in the US, you can definitely pay more, or less, depending on how much bandwidth you want to buy on your end.

But if I am your customer, you cannot make a deal with Charter, my Internet Service Provider (ISP), to get preferred bandwidth to my Texas trailer, at higher priority than whatever else I am downloading, no matter how much you pay. If I want to access your fine services faster, I can purchase a higher bandwidth plan from Charter, which will apply to all sites I access.

But your bits compete equally with all other bits both on the Internet backbone and all your clients local connections. Your extra money can only get you a faster local connection (if you are in the USA ... hopefully Romania plays by its own rules).

We each get to buy however much we want on our end, but must share the backbone and access to whatever is on the other end equally.

[Ilie Pandia]

OK, thanks guys... it starts to make more sense...

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Ilie Pandia (here)
And the "problem" would be if say Google would pay to have their traffic prioritized and Vimeo would not, then even if I have large pipe, Vimeo would still crawl while Google would be lightning fast.

Google and Netflix will definitely have much fatter pipes on their end than say ProjectAvalon.net, but Google bits will have no higher priority than Avalon bits, on the "last mile" of cable that connects my Texas trailer to some local Charter router.

[Ilie Pandia]

So then... net neutrality would be a good thing, unless the gov will use loop holes in that document to close some pipes down in areas that need to go silent or to make sure that only "pro gov" content is actually delivered. Or this is an over simplification?

[ThePythonicCow]

Imagine that electric power companies could label and prioritize electrons, and imagine that they also owned electrical appliance product lines. Without some constraints, such as this FCC "net neutrality" ruling, you could end up with your local electrical power company throttling power to your refrigerator if it was a brand of refrigerator sold by one of their competitors. So if you actually wanted to keep your refrigerator cold, you'd have to buy the brand of refrigerator sold by your electrical power company.

[Ilie Pandia]

Ah, good analogy, yes !

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Ilie Pandia (here)
So then... net neutrality would be a good thing, unless the gov will use loop holes in that document to close some pipes down in areas that need to go silent or to make sure that only "pro gov" content is actually delivered. Or this is an over simplification?

Net neutrality is good in that it prevents Internet Service Providers from abusing what amounts to a monopolistic control of high speed Internet in most places (usually only one broadband ISP is available in any given area in the US) to favor major Web content providers that pay for higher quality access to that ISP's clients.

But buried in this net neutrality ruling is a vague claim by the FCC to have the power to enforce a "general conduct rule". That's potentially dangerous.

In other words, the US government is doing us a favor by keeping big ISP businesses (there are only about 3 or 4 major ISP's in the US) from abusing their power, but the government is also opening the door to enforcing whatever "general conduct rules" on Internet traffic that it might choose to impose in the future. Perhaps, for example, my views on much of what the US government does would no longer be allowed to be posted ... if the bastards could get away with such "rules", I'm sure some of them would gladly do so.

So ... gangsters "A" are doing the right thing by protecting us from gangsters "B", and also promising to "do the right thing by us" in the future, to impose their "general conduct rules" on Internet activity and conduct.

In the short term, I doubt they have the leverage to do much bad this way; in the long term, this will be a long standing battle, as people in China and some other countries have already been actively engaged in.

[Anchor]

Some summary and relevant items from the document:

Posted by TL;DR from reddit /u/Mr_Flexy
§ 8.5 No blocking. A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices, subject to reasonable network management.

Section 8.7 is amended to read as follows:

§ 8.7 No throttling.

A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic on the basis of Internet content, application, or service, or use of a non-harmful device, subject to reasonable network management.

Section 8.9 is redesignated section 8.19.

New section 8.9 is added to read as follows:

§ 8.9 No paid prioritization.

(a) A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not engage in paid prioritization.

(b) “Paid prioritization” refers to the management of a broadband provider’s network to directly or indirectly favor some traffic over other traffic, including through use of techniques such as traffic shaping, prioritization, resource reservation, or other forms of preferential traffic management, either (a) in exchange for consideration (monetary or otherwise) from a third party, or (b) to benefit an affiliated entity. ederal Communications Commission FCC 15-24 285

(c) The Commission may waive the ban on paid prioritization only if the petitioner demonstrates that the practice would provide some significant public interest benefit and would not harm the open nature of the Internet.

New section 8.11 is added to read as follows:

§ 8.11 No unreasonable interference or unreasonable disadvantage standard for Internet conduct.

Any person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not unreasonably interfere with or unreasonably disadvantage (i) end users’ ability to select, access, and use broadband Internet access service or the lawful Internet content, applications, services, or devices of their choice, or (ii) edge providers’ ability to make lawful content, applications, services, or devices available to end users. Reasonable network management shall not be considered a violation of this rule.

Section 8.13 is amended by revising paragraph (a)(4), revising paragraphs (b), (b)(1) and (b)(2), removing paragraph (b)(3), redesignating paragraphs (c) and (d) as paragraphs (d) and (e), and adding new paragraph (c) to read as follows:

§ 8.11 Continues, but for the sake of a TL:DR, I will stop there. § 8.12 and on is your rights to file a complaint, procedures for complaints, confidentiality clause.

If you get the time, I would encourage you to read this document, as the FCC did a great job with it.

A little side note I found funny and a nice little jab at specifically mentioning Verizon, on page 293 a footnote was added: >10 The Verizon court specifically touted the virtuous cycle as a worthy goal and within our authority. Verizon, 740 F.3d at 644 (“The Commission’s finding that Internet openness fosters the edge-provider innovation that drives this ‘virtuous cycle’ was likewise reasonable and grounded in substantial evidence.”).

Also on page 294, the FCC details a little paragraph of how it is using it's rules: >13. The legal basis for the Open Internet rules we adopt today relies on multiple sources of legal authority, including section 706, Title II, and Title III of the Communications Act. We conclude that the best approach to achieving our open Internet goals is to rely on several, independent, yet complementary sources of legal authority. Our authority under Section 706 is not mutually exclusive with our authority under Titles II and III of the Act. Rather, we read our statute to provide independent sources of authority that work in concert toward common ends. Under section 706, the Commission has the authority to take certain regulatory steps to encourage and accelerate the deployment of broadband to all Americans. Under Title II, the Commission has authority to ensure that common carriers do not engage in unjust and unreasonable practices or preferences. And under Title III, the Commission has authority to protect the public interest through spectrum licensing. Each of these sources of authority provides an alternative ground to independently support our open Internet rules.

Full document is here http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Rele...CC-15-24A1.pdf

Its only 400 pages, so get cracking

[Maunagarjana]

For those wringing their hands about Net Neutrality, there is a new bill gaining some support among Republicans (31 co-sponsors) being called the "Internet Freedom Act". Its champion is Rep. Marsha Blackburn, who is a longtime opponent of Net Neutrality and who has received nearly $262,000 in donations from companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015...et-neutrality/

[ThePythonicCow]

Aha - one dot connection just fell into place - on January 25, 2015, the FCC defined broadband as 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up, and then on February 26, 2015, the FCC adopted its Open Internet Order, which order has been the main topic of this Avalon thread.

The cynic in me just knew that these two events were connected, but didn't see how.

It just dawned on me.

I have the cheapest broadband available from the (only) Internet Service Provider (ISP) who covers my location - Charter. My broadband service provides 20 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up, which is less than the new definition of broadband. So what I am purchasing is no longer (legally) defined as broadband by the FCC, and not subject to the new FCC "net neutrality" rules.

What this likely means is that Charter could subsidize their lowest level of service with special deals with backend providers such as Netflix and Google. If I wanted to stream video and movies all the time, from some provider that wasn't lining the back pocket of Charter, and if I then did not like the slow speed that my video streaming was getting (because no one bribed Charter, and consequently, Charter was throttling those video streams), then I would have the option of upgrading my service with Charter to 25 Mbps or better. Charter would still get their money, from me instead of from some backend providers, and I would get my off-brand video streaming at the same speed as Netflix or Google.

It would not be a violation of the new FCC regulations for Charter to make backroom deals with Netflix and Google, to provide service that discriminated against "undesired" competitive backend providers, so long as it just applied to Charter's customers who were not getting broadband (such as myself, at 20 Mbps.)

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Paul (here)
Aha - one dot connection just fell into place - on January 25, 2015, the FCC defined broadband as 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up, and then on February 26, 2015, the FCC adopted its Open Internet Order, which order has been the main topic of this Avalon thread.

Despite all the talk in the FCC net neutrality ruling about the importance of their ruling for both landline and mobile Internet, I suspect that most mobile web plans are under 25 Mbps ... so this FCC ruling won't apply to them .

===

Granted, it's a little difficult to tell with mobile plans what their bandwidth is, using whatever is the FCC definition of bandwidth.

Landline plans sell by speed (bits per second), whereas mobile plans sell by amount (bytes per month), so the (new) FCC definition of "broadband" as 25 Mbits/sec is easy to evaluate for landline, but not so obvious how to apply to mobile.

My 20 Mbit/sec landline connection reliably maintains 20 Mbits/sec, most times of the day, just under the 25 Mbits/sec that the FCC now defines as "broadband". On the other hand, 4G LTE mobile signaling (one of the faster at present) has peak transfer rates up to 100 Mbits/sec to 1000 Mbits/sec but according to 4G LTE showdown: How fast is your carrier? (C|Net), might take 39 seconds to download a 49.65 Mbyte file, which works out to only about 10 Mbits/sec, well under the 25 Mbits/sec FCC definition of "broadband".

Given that T-Mobile currently charges about $10/GByte of monthly data, and given that I download up to 200 GBytes/month, it would cost me about $2000/month for my current usage, if done over a mobile connection ... so I am not about to experiment personally on whether or not that falls under the FCC's broadband definition <grin>. A 5 GByte/month T-Mobile plan costs $40/month, and if one wanted to download that 5 GByte at a steady pace, all month long, that works out to 15 KBits/sec ... below dial-up speeds using an old-fashioned modem, and far, far, below any FCC definition of broadband, old or new.

If I could maintain the maximum download rate of 300 Mbits/sec that is theoretically possible for 4G LTE, for an entire month, from a T-Mobile plan costing $10/GByte, that would cost me just under $1 Million dollars. Ouch.

===

So ... ignoring those last four paragraphs (too much information) ... the bottom line is that these new FCC net neutrality rules apparently don't apply to many landline users, and perhaps (I can't tell) they don't apply to almost all mobile users ... because they are too slow to qualify as "broadband" (25 Mbits/sec).

===

Aha - from the ArsTechnica article announcing the FCC decision to define broadband as 25 Mbits/sec, the FCC stated outright that this decision (that broadband means 25 Mbits/sec) only applied to "fixed" (such as landline) connections, and explicitly "excludes mobile and satellite from counting as broadband because of concerns about reliability, data caps, and latency, even if they can meet the bandwidth requirements."

==> So ... the talk of Mobile access in the more recent FCC "net neutrality" decision is almost devoid of meaning, since the FCC has already said (reasonably so) that mobile is not broadband, due to the above concerns.

[Anchor]

Posted by Paul (here)
The cynic in me just knew that these two events were connected, but didn't see how.

It just dawned on me.

I tried:

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...l=1#post937702

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Anchor (here)
I tried:

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...l=1#post937702

Ah - yes - even after I thank a post it can take me a while to connect the dots .

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Paul (here)
Aha - from the ArsTechnica article announcing the FCC decision to define broadband as 25 Mbits/sec, the FCC stated outright that this decision (that broadband means 25 Mbits/sec) only applied to "fixed" (such as landline) connections, and explicitly "excludes mobile and satellite from counting as broadband because of concerns about reliability, data caps, and latency, even if they can meet the bandwidth requirements."

==> So ... the talk of Mobile access in the more recent FCC "net neutrality" decision is almost devoid of meaning, since the FCC has already said (reasonably so) that mobile is not broadband, due to the above concerns.

Posted by Anchor (here)

Posted by Paul (here)
The cynic in me just knew that these two events were connected, but didn't see how.

It just dawned on me.

I tried:

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...l=1#post937702

As I read this 400 page FCC "REPORT AND ORDER ON REMAND, DECLARATORY RULING, AND ORDER", it becomes increasingly obvious that they are not using "broadband" in some narrow sense requiring a specific bandwidth. Rather they are discussing and describing, at considerable length, the full spectrum of fixed and mobile Internet access means and intending to apply their Net Neutrality "rules that would prevent specific practices we know are harmful to Internet openness— blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization" (page 3) to all "broadband Internet access services" (BIAS).

They explicitly state this, and explicitly state that they are not using the word "broadband" here in the same way as they did in their "2015 Broadband Progress Report" (which constrained "Broadband" to mean just 25 Mbps or better), in the following footnote on page 10:

We note that our use of the term “broadband” in this Order includes but is not limited to services meeting the threshold for “advanced telecommunications capability,” as defined in Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, as amended. 47 U.S.C. § 1302(b). Section 706 defines that term as “high-speed, switched, broadband telecommunications capability that enables users to originate and receive high-quality voice, data, graphics, and video telecommunications using any technology.” 47 U.S.C. § 1302(d)(1). The 2015 Broadband Progress Report specifically notes that “advanced telecommunications capability,” while sometimes referred to as “broadband,” differs from the Commission’s use of the term “broadband” in other contexts. 2015 Broadband Progress Report at n.1 (rel. Feb. 4, 2015).

So my earlier conclusions that this FCC ruling in favor of Net Neutrality had little significance because most fixed, and almost all mobile, Internet access in the US is at speeds below 25 Mbps were wrong conclusions.

Rather, so far, I am finding this FCC Net Neutrality ruling to be important, relevant, and favorable.

[ThePythonicCow]

All the sites I read discussing this FCC ruling that tend toward the "right wing" or Republican side of views have been lambasting it as the FCC destroying Internet freedom - Obamanet (said as an insult, echo'ing the term Obamacare.)

So far, I have found essentially no basis whatsoever for such outrage, beyond the one mentioned here, earlier in this thread, regarding the "general conduct rule", as explained by the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF).

The red-team versus blue-team, they bad, we good, partisan divide seems to be endemic to even this discussion ... sad.