As an ISP myself, I am presented with a different perspective on this issue. I do have some policies in place (established before Net Neutrality rules were implemented in 2015) to try to shape network traffic to provide the best customer experience. These policies remained in place and will continue to remain in place as long as it makes for a better experience for my customers.
And as a direct competitor to the large monopoly providers, if these big companies make changes that degrade customer experience, that will mean only more business for me and my fellow independent ISPs.
This is what the national organization of internet providers that I belong to says about recent events:
I think he's wrong but could be right. I think it's naive to think the cable companies won't come up with myriad ways to hold content hostage in favor of content they're paid to host. I have already moaned about how cable TV prevents the MLB from streaming games to me even though I'm 500 miles from the nearest stadium (but still in the Rockies' local area). But mostly I really just hate that guy. He's such a condescending prick I just want to punch him, and I don't get that way about too many people. As much as I dislike hearing our president speak, Pai is 10x more infuriating to me.
I'm not getting "condescending prick"; rather, I see him as somewhat articulate and knowledgeable in his field. I'm not sure I agree with his conclusions as to outcome, but some of his points are valid, IMO. As to whether ISPs will charge more or not in response to this latest deregulation move—how can we tell? Our providers seem to always raise charges every six months or so, anyways; when they get out of hand, I just switch providers (luckily I have both FiOS and Comcast cables out back) if I can't get the incumbent to deal. To complicate everything, who knows in 10 years what we'll be using for accessing internet? 7G? Satellite? Area Wi-Fi? I dislike that the new regs forbid localities to impose neutrality (although I understand why). Finally, rural vs. urban vs. suburban makes a lot of difference in ISP experiences.
All of that: yep. In talking to the kids about it, I realized that for what I know of our rural situation, I know nothing. I cannot predict how things will shake out. We don't get our internet via the cable co. Our city paid a bundle about 7 years ago to get fiber stretched to every home in town, or at least to the pole in the alley (if the people declined the offer). A local telco was given a 5-year monopoly on the system, and we've been with them since the day they hooked us up. Now, presumably, another ISP could get our business and use the same fiber to get the service to us. So anyway, the local cable co is a revolving door of crap service; I have no doubt that they'd find a way to block Netflix unless we pay more per month... if we were with them.
But sure, Ajit Pai is a wonk who knows a lot about a lot of things, but his explaining voice makes me furious.
True. But, in the process, they also essentially destroyed Bell Labs, one of the most successful basic research organizations ever. (Bell Labs are credited with the development of radio astronomy, the transistor, the laser, the charge-coupled device (CCD), information theory, the operating systems Unix, Plan 9, Inferno, and the programming languages C, C++, and S. Eight Nobel Prizes have been awarded for work completed at Bell Laboratories.) Good thing Congress didn't step in when Apple Computer was on the ropes! :-)
The Open Internet rules the FCC devised based on Title II authority expressly permit ISPs to block, filter and curate content.
As an ISP myself, I am presented with a different perspective on this issue. I do have some policies in place (established before Net Neutrality rules were implemented in 2015) to try to shape network traffic to provide the best customer experience. These policies remained in place and will continue to remain in place as long as it makes for a better experience for my customers.
And as a direct competitor to the large monopoly providers, if these big companies make changes that degrade customer experience, that will mean only more business for me and my fellow independent ISPs.
This is what the national organization of internet providers that I belong to says about recent events:
I think he's wrong but could be right. I think it's naive to think the cable companies won't come up with myriad ways to hold content hostage in favor of content they're paid to host. I have already moaned about how cable TV prevents the MLB from streaming games to me even though I'm 500 miles from the nearest stadium (but still in the Rockies' local area). But mostly I really just hate that guy. He's such a condescending prick I just want to punch him, and I don't get that way about too many people. As much as I dislike hearing our president speak, Pai is 10x more infuriating to me.
I'm not getting "condescending prick"; rather, I see him as somewhat articulate and knowledgeable in his field. I'm not sure I agree with his conclusions as to outcome, but some of his points are valid, IMO. As to whether ISPs will charge more or not in response to this latest deregulation move—how can we tell? Our providers seem to always raise charges every six months or so, anyways; when they get out of hand, I just switch providers (luckily I have both FiOS and Comcast cables out back) if I can't get the incumbent to deal. To complicate everything, who knows in 10 years what we'll be using for accessing internet? 7G? Satellite? Area Wi-Fi? I dislike that the new regs forbid localities to impose neutrality (although I understand why). Finally, rural vs. urban vs. suburban makes a lot of difference in ISP experiences.
I think he's wrong but could be right. I think it's naive to think the cable companies won't come up with myriad ways to hold content hostage in favor of content they're paid to host. I have already moaned about how cable TV prevents the MLB from streaming games to me even though I'm 500 miles from the nearest stadium (but still in the Rockies' local area). But mostly I really just hate that guy. He's such a condescending prick I just want to punch him, and I don't get that way about too many people. As much as I dislike hearing our president speak, Pai is 10x more infuriating to me.
There are ways that this isn't terrible. But I worked for telecoms, and the culture of entitlement and avarice was thoroughly ingrained.
I used to do outside plant equipment design and installs. This the boxes that you see on corners in neighborhoods. I had many arguments with managers and lawyers in the company about the right way to handle placing equipment that provides service. They were all to happy to use eminent domain, and when they were forced off of that mountain they fell back to offering one time payments of pennies for permanent easements. These guys were assholes through and through, and they hated that there were limits to what they could do to their customers. And yeah, Pai is a world class asshole, but he's perfectly normal in the ranks of telecom lawyers. I left that job after about a year for many reasons, but "I can't work with these people" was high on the list.
Edit: The industry has brought some great things to our world. They originally made a grand and worthy bargain to provide service in exchange for access and a reasonable return on their investment. But that era ended ages ago. they got so out of control that the congress actually stepped in and said "stop being such assholes" and when they didn't stop, the congress broke up the Bell companies.They have been recombining and keeping up the same old games ever since. This is just the latest act.
I think he's wrong but could be right. I think it's naive to think the cable companies won't come up with myriad ways to hold content hostage in favor of content they're paid to host. I have already moaned about how cable TV prevents the MLB from streaming games to me even though I'm 500 miles from the nearest stadium (but still in the Rockies' local area). But mostly I really just hate that guy. He's such a condescending prick I just want to punch him, and I don't get that way about too many people. As much as I dislike hearing our president speak, Pai is 10x more infuriating to me.
This week, the free and open Internet millions of Americans have come to depend on is under attack.
In a procedural move, Senate Republicans are trying to overturn the rules that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) put in place late last year to help protect net neutrality - the simple idea that all content and applications on the Internet should be treated the same, regardless of who owns the content or the website. The House already pushed through this dangerous legislation, which would effectively turn control of the Internet over to a handful of very powerful corporations...
I can still remember when "net neutrality" was all and only about backbone providers peering with each other free of charge. *sigh*
There are actually some very good reasons for retail ISPs to do port filtering, QoS and other things. None of these is inherently bad. Some are vital for the transition from a separate large circuit-switched network for telephony, and a packet switched network for everything else, to a unified all-purpose network. IME if you need ports opened, sometimes all it takes is asking. At the very worst you must pay for a higher tier of service.
If and when a retail ISP redirects a customer's legitimate IP request to a different address, then we have a problem.
Hey, Carl!
