Federal Regulator Expected To Hand Huge Win To Net Neutrality

[Nice Squirrel]

For those who might have missed this little nugget this week.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/29/news/companies/comcast-asshole-bill/

The company [Comcast] actually changed a customer's name to A--hole Brown, from Ricardo Brown, on a bill after he canceled the cable service.

 

[Axulus]

They want to charge both customer and content provider. If these tiny websites want traffic, they'd better pay. Comcast will provide mirror sites for discussions like this and your little store can easily be cut off from all revenue.

But it is the customer that wants to visit them. Why not make the customers pay to visit, especially when it is the case that the vast majority of these tiny websites have _no_ money and _no_ revenue stream? The theory behind this idea is ludicrous.

Actually you have that backwards, they pay Comcast to carry their channels and the advertisers pay the bills of the content providers. Take your time and look it up.

I'm sorry, but no. Comcast and other distributors pays large "carriage fees" to have the broadcast rights to carry the networks.

But in recent carriage disputes, broadcasters have often prevailed, because customers can find alternative distributors but not alternative content. "Consumers don't get mad and trade in their channel when these fights drag on. They go looking for a different satellite or telephone company," said Analyst Craig Moffett of Moffett Research. Alex Ben Block noted in The Hollywood Reporter that when distributors start losing customers in the heat of a carriage dispute, "they have a history of caving in." That dynamic was in play in a 2013 dispute between CBS and Time Warner Cable. As the National Football League season approached, CBS's bargaining position improved. In the wake of the settlement, the broadcaster increased its per subscriber fee from an estimated $.58 to between $1 and $2, setting a new standard for retransmission fees commanded by over-the-air broadcasters. CBS also retained digital rights to its contents for resale to online distributors. The agreement was expected to earn the broadcaster an estimated $1 billion to $2 billion in additional revenues by 2017.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carriage_dispute

They are charging $100 per month here. (The three competing companies charge $30/mo. DSL/Wireless/Fiber optic)

And why would they want to piss off their $100 paying customers, who expect the best for the premium fees they are paying? If you piss them off, it lowers your profit maxizing price as there is an additional cost to being pissed off. A customer would rather pay more money and be satisfied. How much they are pissed off will reduce their willingness to pay. A monopoly can thus have higher profits if the cost in satisfying them is less than the value difference to the customer in being satisfied vs. pissed off, with the difference being greater the more you piss them off.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

But it is the customer that wants to visit them. Why not make the customers pay to visit, especially when it is the case that the vast majority of these tiny websites have _no_ money and _no_ revenue stream? The theory behind this idea is ludicrous.

Actually you have that backwards, they pay Comcast to carry their channels and the advertisers pay the bills of the content providers. Take your time and look it up.

I'm sorry, but no. Comcast and other distributors pays large "carriage fees" to have the broadcast rights to carry the networks.

The big ones like HBO, CBS etc, yes, but the smaller ones pay Comcast.

They are charging $100 per month here. (The three competing companies charge $30/mo. DSL/Wireless/Fiber optic)

And why would they want to piss off their $100 paying customers, who expect the best for the premium fees they are paying?

You would think so, but no, they are quite content to crap on their customers.

If you piss them off, it lowers your profit maxizing price as there is an additional cost to being pissed off.

Why when you are the only game in town in most markets (and in some places have successfully lobbied to keep out competition)?

 

[lpetrich]

The purpose of net neutrality is to have a single Internet instead of several walled-garden mini-Internets. The latter had actually happened around 1990 in the form of proprietary online services, like CompuServe, America Online, Prodigy, GEnie, Delphi, and eWorld. Their creators never built an Internet to connect them, and when the "real" Internet became big enough, in the mid 1990's, they either folded or became ISP's.

So does anyone mourn the passing of those online services?

 

[Axulus]

The purpose of net neutrality is to have a single Internet instead of several walled-garden mini-Internets. The latter had actually happened around 1990 in the form of proprietary online services, like CompuServe, America Online, Prodigy, GEnie, Delphi, and eWorld. Their creators never built an Internet to connect them, and when the "real" Internet became big enough, in the mid 1990's, they either folded or became ISP's.

So does anyone mourn the passing of those online services?

So you are saying that the walled-garden model failed ages ago without any net neutrality regulation or law?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I'm sure Comcast won't give up. It is too lucrative a prospect of charging for content and delivery.

They will soon be acquiring Google.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The purpose of net neutrality is to have a single Internet instead of several walled-garden mini-Internets. The latter had actually happened around 1990 in the form of proprietary online services, like CompuServe, America Online, Prodigy, GEnie, Delphi, and eWorld. Their creators never built an Internet to connect them, and when the "real" Internet became big enough, in the mid 1990's, they either folded or became ISP's.

So does anyone mourn the passing of those online services?

So you are saying that the walled-garden model failed ages ago without any net neutrality regulation or law?

Christ... is there anything you can't find fault in?

Net Neutrality is trying to keep communication companies that own the last few miles of the line from kinking the line in order to get money (more in some cases) out of people providing services online.

Companies like Comcast are committing fraud by advertising speeds and access to online video, only to fuck over the online video streaming companies and kinking access that they promised. And you are defending it.

 

[Axulus]

So you are saying that the walled-garden model failed ages ago without any net neutrality regulation or law?

Christ... is there anything you can't find fault in?

Net Neutrality is trying to keep communication companies that own the last few miles of the line from kinking the line in order to get money (more in some cases) out of people providing services online.

Companies like Comcast are committing fraud by advertising speeds and access to online video, only to fuck over the online video streaming companies and kinking access that they promised. And you are defending it.

I'm sorry, where did he mention kinking access in the post I responded to?

 

[jonatha]

The purpose of net neutrality is to have a single Internet instead of several walled-garden mini-Internets. The latter had actually happened around 1990 in the form of proprietary online services, like CompuServe, America Online, Prodigy, GEnie, Delphi, and eWorld. Their creators never built an Internet to connect them, and when the "real" Internet became big enough, in the mid 1990's, they either folded or became ISP's.

So does anyone mourn the passing of those online services?

So you are saying that the walled-garden model failed ages ago without any net neutrality regulation or law?

It failed ages ago because net neutrality was industry practice.

Now the industry needs a bit of regulatory oversight to keep it that way....

 

[Trausti]

I favor net neutrality. As a first point, Congress has the constitutional authority to regulate the internet and there is already precedent with telecom. As a second point, no ISP owns all the architecture for the internet and each ISP invariably uses servers, lines, portals, whatever, operated by the government or other private entities. And as a third point, being a consumer, when I pay $ for 1 gb download speed, that's what I expect. Not that the ISP can determine whether I get 1 gb with this site but not with that one. That's not in the agreement (or maybe it's in the fine print). If the ISP has legitimate concerns for crowding of its bandwidth, charging different rates for different bandwidth and speeds is the answer - which they already do.

 

[coloradoatheist]

I favor net neutrality. As a first point, Congress has the constitutional authority to regulate the internet and there is already precedent with telecom. As a second point, no ISP owns all the architecture for the internet and each ISP invariably uses servers, lines, portals, whatever, operated by the government or other private entities. And as a third point, being a consumer, when I pay $ for 1 gb download speed, that's what I expect. Not that the ISP can determine whether I get 1 gb with this site but not with that one. That's not in the agreement (or maybe it's in the fine print). If the ISP has legitimate concerns for crowding of its bandwidth, charging different rates for different bandwidth and speeds is the answer - which they already do.

The Internet was never designed that way. It was always just a best effort model which also built in parameters to for faster queueing. Interesting that they put in bits to mark traffic as a higher priority but then said let's not use it. And distance is a major factor in the speed between sites. There is no guarantee that that you have to be with X miles of your destination.

 

[Axulus]

I favor net neutrality. As a first point, Congress has the constitutional authority to regulate the internet and there is already precedent with telecom. As a second point, no ISP owns all the architecture for the internet and each ISP invariably uses servers, lines, portals, whatever, operated by the government or other private entities. And as a third point, being a consumer, when I pay $ for 1 gb download speed, that's what I expect. Not that the ISP can determine whether I get 1 gb with this site but not with that one. That's not in the agreement (or maybe it's in the fine print). If the ISP has legitimate concerns for crowding of its bandwidth, charging different rates for different bandwidth and speeds is the answer - which they already do.

We already have laws against false or deceptive advertising. If those laws are proving inadequate, I'm fine with beefing them up.

Second, we have anti-trust regulation. If an area has only one broadband option I'm fine with using regulation or other anti-trust law to crackdown on monopolistic or anti-consumer practices.

The part I'm not really understanding is the idea that the company will charge content providers for better quality access to the network and, if they do, how preventing that changes anything. What is preventing Comcast from switching to a model that charges the customers extra from watching too much Netflix in a net neutrality world, if they can no longer charge Netflix directly, for example?

 

[ksen]

Second, we have anti-trust regulation.

ha-haha-ha-HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

lol, good one axulus!

 

[Axulus]

Second, we have anti-trust regulation.

ha-haha-ha-HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

lol, good one axulus!

And if you believe regulation will be ineffective, won't you have the same response after net neutrality "regulation" is implemented, just laugh when someone suggests that net neutrality regulation exists?

 

[Axulus]

One wonders why Netflix didn't threaten to prevent Comcast's subscribers from accessing Netflix unless Comcast provided it priority access to their network or made a payment to it? ESPN is able to extract several hundreds of millions from Comcast to carry its channels on its cable network, why doesn't Netflix do the same for its internet network?

Or perhaps Netflix should add a "Comcast access fee - please change your internet provider to avoid this fee charged to us by Comcast" to their subscribers who use Comcast.

 

[ksen]

One wonders why Netflix didn't threaten to prevent Comcast's subscribers from accessing Netflix unless Comcast provided it priority access to their network or made a payment to it? ESPN is able to extract several hundreds of millions from Comcast to carry its channels on its cable network, why doesn't Netflix do the same for its internet network?

Because Netflix isn't a piece of shit company?

 

[HelixSpiral]

The part I'm not really understanding is the idea that the company will charge content providers for better quality access to the network and, if they do, how preventing that changes anything. What is preventing Comcast from switching to a model that charges the customers extra from watching too much Netflix in a net neutrality world, if they can no longer charge Netflix directly, for example?

They could charge the customers extra for going over the bandwidth allotment the customer paid for. They could not charge the customer extra for downloading too much data specifically from Netflix.

 

[ksen]

ha-haha-ha-HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

lol, good one axulus!

And if you believe regulation will be ineffective, won't you have the same response after net neutrality "regulation" is implemented, just laugh when someone suggests that net neutrality regulation exists?

Sure, because the fact that some regulation is ineffective means all regulation is ineffective. I can see how you would think that.

 

[Axulus]

The part I'm not really understanding is the idea that the company will charge content providers for better quality access to the network and, if they do, how preventing that changes anything. What is preventing Comcast from switching to a model that charges the customers extra from watching too much Netflix in a net neutrality world, if they can no longer charge Netflix directly, for example?

They could charge the customers extra for going over the bandwidth allotment the customer paid for. They could not charge the customer extra for downloading too much data specifically from Netflix.

They could if they decide to change their pricing model.

 

[HelixSpiral]

They could charge the customers extra for going over the bandwidth allotment the customer paid for. They could not charge the customer extra for downloading too much data specifically from Netflix.

They could if they decide to change their pricing model.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding either you or the concept of net neutrality. The ISPs sell you an internet pipe of X Gb/sec and perhaps also a maximum GB/month. That's it. What providers/sites you're getting your allotment from doesn't matter. You get X Gb/sec regardless of what sites you're connected to. Comcast WANTS to be able to structure their packages like you say. Net neutrality means NOT doing that. Up until recently this was the de facto standard. Now people want it to have force of law because the ISPs want to structure internet service like cable packages.