Re: The FCC is planning new net neutrality rules. And they could enshrine pay-for-play. - The Washington Post
I just posted a completely empty message for which I apologize.
Larry is confused. He can claim he is not, but posting to NANOG does not change the facts. Then again, just because I posted to NANOG doesn't prove I'm right either. Worst of all, this thread is pretty non-operational now.
In a private message I asked if he could name a single monopoly that existed without regulation to protect its monopoly power.
So believe as you please. I'm going to believe that the FCC allowing monopolies (regulated or not) to charge content providers as they please will be bad for me and about 300 million other Americans.
"FCC allowing monopolies" -- suppose the FCC and other regulators and aiders and abettors got out of the the monopoly business?
Besides, what has this to do with my original questions?
Which were "Anyone afraid what will happen when companies which have monopolies can charge content providers or guarantee packet loss?" and "How is this good for the consumer?" and "How is this good for the market?" My answer was an attempt to say that if you don't have any government entities allowing and protecting (two pretty much interchangeable terms, I prefer the latter) monopolies the answer to the first question is "Huh? What?" and to the second and third "Best service for the best price is pretty good for everybody. Except the losers that can't rip you off without the FCC protection." -- Requiescas in pace o email Two identifying characteristics of System Administrators: Ex turpi causa non oritur actio Infallibility, and the ability to learn from their mistakes. (Adapted from Stephen Pinker)
On Apr 25, 2014, at 00:57 , Larry Sheldon <LarrySheldon@cox.net> wrote:
I just posted a completely empty message for which I apologize.
Larry is confused. He can claim he is not, but posting to NANOG does not change the facts. Then again, just because I posted to NANOG doesn't prove I'm right either. Worst of all, this thread is pretty non-operational now.
In a private message I asked if he could name a single monopoly that existed without regulation to protect its monopoly power.
I answered in a private message: Microsoft. Kinda obvious if you think about it for, oh, say, 12 microseconds.
Which were "Anyone afraid what will happen when companies which have monopolies can charge content providers or guarantee packet loss?" and "How is this good for the consumer?" and "How is this good for the market?"
My answer was an attempt to say that if you don't have any government entities allowing and protecting (two pretty much interchangeable terms, I prefer the latter) monopolies the answer to the first question is "Huh? What?" and to the second and third "Best service for the best price is pretty good for everybody. Except the losers that can't rip you off without the FCC protection."
While it is probably true that the gov't had a hand in the fact I have exactly one BB provider at my home, I am not even closed to convinced that a purely open market would not have resulted in the same problem. But thanx for pointing out an answer I probably missed. -- TTFN, patrick
On 2014-04-25 15:23 , Patrick W. Gilmore wrote: [..]
While it is probably true that the gov't had a hand in the fact I have exactly one BB provider at my home, I am not even closed to convinced that a purely open market would not have resulted in the same problem. But thanx for pointing out an answer I probably missed.
In the Netherlands almost all bigger ISPs (the ones that cover quite a large amount of the effective customer base) are now owned again by the former government-started-then-turned-private ISP who has been buying up various ISPs over the years. Oh, and yes, the Dutch Regulatory organization did not see any problem with this monopoly growing.... All sounds like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ilMx7k7mso right? :) Greets, Jeroen
On 04/25/2014 08:23 AM, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
On Apr 25, 2014, at 00:57 , Larry Sheldon <LarrySheldon@cox.net> wrote:
In a private message I asked if he could name a single monopoly that existed without regulation to protect its monopoly power.
I answered in a private message: Microsoft.
Kinda obvious if you think about it for, oh, say, 12 microseconds.
DeBeers Diamond cartel, which operated internationally and held an effective monopoly on the diamond market for *decades* was apparently beyond the reach of regulation to either assist or hinder them, and has only recently faded somewhat in the face of competition that they can't reach with their traditional protective tactics. The Standard Oil monopoly was obtained without the special assistance of government as well, though they were broken up by the government. The methods they used should be mandatory study for everyone. The AT&T monopoly position *was* granted (and later revoked) by the government. Net neutrality is an intervention of the government to prevent monopoly forming tactics on the part of major players, so I think it is something worth having. It is not (unfortunately) something that is a natural state for the Internet. -- Daniel Taylor VP Operations Vocal Laboratories, Inc. dtaylor@vocalabs.com http://www.vocalabs.com/ (612)235-5711
gulation to protect its monopoly power. I answered in a private message: Microsoft.
Kinda obvious if you think about it for, oh, say, 12 microseconds. The government actually had to step in to hinder them, as I recall,
On 4/25/2014 8:23 AM, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote: though I believe it was pointless. Relatively speaking, Microsoft had a short run monopoly if you want to call it that. They definitely had the market share. With the introduction of the smartphone and the tablet, people have required more versatile applications which tend to work across multiple devices. In this regard, I believe Apple won. Internet growth and consumer education have also altered market share. The money filtering into open source has fueled a lot of growth in software development and allowed a lot more flexibility. The change to OSX and x86 on Apple's part along with google and redhat's efforts have altered the playing field permanently.
Which were "Anyone afraid what will happen when companies which have monopolies can charge content providers or guarantee packet loss?" and "How is this good for the consumer?" and "How is this good for the market?"
My answer was an attempt to say that if you don't have any government entities allowing and protecting (two pretty much interchangeable terms, I prefer the latter) monopolies the answer to the first question is "Huh? What?" and to the second and third "Best service for the best price is pretty good for everybody. Except the losers that can't rip you off without the FCC protection." While it is probably true that the gov't had a hand in the fact I have exactly one BB provider at my home, I am not even closed to convinced that a purely open market would not have resulted in the same problem. But thanx for pointing out an answer I probably missed.
In Oklahoma, I've watched WISPs take money from the various grants for under-served areas. They love to move into small cities and those cities are happy to have them. Their plan is well thought out. They know exactly how fast the telco will move to increase speeds and drop the requirement that you must also pay for a phone line (which the telco was just using to pull in extra money on the backside until the FCC finally changes that funding). The prices suddenly drop in the town. It's not the best service for either party, but it is at least more affordable. The one that pisses me off is when ILECs use grant money strictly to try and wipe out their competition. It creates a very bad environment, where one company must use grants for the same area as another company just to stay competitive. I don't mind all these funds and all, but there needs to be much more oversight on how the funding is used. "underserved" is too broad, and the grants get used in anti-competitive practices against companies that don't pull money from the government. In addition, I too often see companies that have used grants not lower their prices, provide more jobs, or increase their bandwidth offerings. I hear corporate jet fuel is costly, though. We still have huge areas of land that have little or no affordable broadband capability. These are areas that it isn't profitable to buy the equipment to serve and where grant money would do the most good to allow sustainable growth. What I've been pondering is the creation of non-profit ISPs, where the purpose is to actually serve the people who won't make you millions at cost. Jack
On Apr 24, 2014, at 9:57 PM, Larry Sheldon <LarrySheldon@cox.net> wrote:
I just posted a completely empty message for which I apologize.
Larry is confused. He can claim he is not, but posting to NANOG does not change the facts. Then again, just because I posted to NANOG doesn't prove I'm right either. Worst of all, this thread is pretty non-operational now.
In a private message I asked if he could name a single monopoly that existed without regulation to protect its monopoly power.
In my neighborhood, Comcast has a monopoly on coax cable tv and HFC internet services. There are no regulations that support that monopoly. Another company could, theoretically, apply, receive permits, and build out a second cable system if they wanted to. However, the population density is such that even if that company captured 50% of the market, it would merely make the market economically unviable for both companies. In such instances, you do indeed have “natural monopolies” which are an economic construct, not a regulatory artifact.
Besides, what has this to do with my original questions?
Which were "Anyone afraid what will happen when companies which have monopolies can charge content providers or guarantee packet loss?" and "How is this good for the consumer?" and "How is this good for the market?"
My answer was an attempt to say that if you don't have any government entities allowing and protecting (two pretty much interchangeable terms, I prefer the latter) monopolies the answer to the first question is "Huh? What?" and to the second and third "Best service for the best price is pretty good for everybody. Except the losers that can't rip you off without the FCC protection.”
How, exactly, are the governments protecting the monopolies of ILECs and Cable companies? It seems to me that it’s more a case of those monopolies persisting because the non-regulatory (largely economic) barriers to competition are large enough that they prevent viable competitors from forming. Allowing those unregulated monopolies to subsequently leverage that into a “content protection racket” is the internet equivalent of turning a regulatory blind eye to more traditional forms of extortion. So, no, eliminating the government’s protection of monopolies (wherever you think that is occurring) will not solve the more general problem of monopolies that are a problem without government protection. Owen
----- Original Message -----
From: "Owen DeLong" <owen@delong.com>
In my neighborhood, Comcast has a monopoly on coax cable tv and HFC internet services. There are no regulations that support that monopoly. Another company could, theoretically, apply, receive permits, and build out a second cable system if they wanted to. However, the population density is such that even if that company captured 50% of the market, it would merely make the market economically unviable for both companies.
In such instances, you do indeed have “natural monopolies” which are an economic construct, not a regulatory artifact.
And if this were not true, Verizon wouldn't have agitated to get it made illegal in 19 states for the local municipality to be the owner of that "natural monopoly" transport network; see also my month long thread on that topic and it's second and third order resultants in late 2012. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274
On 14-04-25 00:57, Larry Sheldon wrote:
In a private message I asked if he could name a single monopoly that existed without regulation to protect its monopoly power.
Egg of Chicken question. Did regulation arise because of marker failure (monopoly, duopoly), did did regulation create monopolies ? When cable cos started in canada (TV only), they went to the CRTC, as part of obtaining their broadcasting licenses and demanded they be granted monopoly status for the areas they served. So fairly quickly, the country was carved up into different territories, each served by a single cable company (a couple of exceptions for border cases etc). residential telephone was almost always a monopoly. There may have been many different telcos, but each operated as the incumbent in its town. The bigger guys ended up gobbling most of them over the years. The probvlem of net neutrality does not reside in the "internet" itself. The transit industry is a functioning markletplace with many competitors and dynamic pricing pushing pricing towards costs. The problem resides in the last mile which is controlled by incumbents. The problem is that telcos and cablecos are becoming undifferentiated. Cablecos offer telephony, and telcos offer TV distribution. The difference is that not all telcos have advances and those still stuck with old DSL are becoming irrelevant, leaving only a monopoly cableco to serve customers. And whenever 100% of facilities based last mile providers are more interested in protecting their legacy TV assets, you get problems with net neutrality, just as Comcast is doing to Netflix. For large ISPs, Netflix provides caching appliances that can be inside their network, so it is not a question of transit costs. It has everything to do with a company that is heavily involved in TV, and which controls the ISP market is such a large areas of USA wanting to replace lost TV revenus by billing whoever is stealing those revenus. In other words, they use their market power to hurt competitors. While the FCC is getting the news, this should have gone to the FTC because it is clearly an anti-competitive and predatory measure that proves Comcast is using its market power to hurt competitors. As a side note in Canada, the "Competition Bureau" (FTC in USA) is getting involved with CRTC (FCC in USA) and submits into processes with arguments on competition. When there is a clear case of abuse of marlet power and anti-competive practices, (such as Comcast vs Netflix) then government intervention is not only warranted, it is essential.
For large ISPs, Netflix provides caching appliances that can be inside their network, so it is not a question of transit costs. It has everything to do with a company that is heavily involved in TV, and which controls the ISP market is such a large areas of USA wanting to replace lost TV revenus by billing whoever is stealing those revenus.
The use of the word stealing here is offensive and inaccurate. It implies a sense of entitlement to those revenues which is, IMHO, absurd. It’s like political candidates who complain about third party candidates “stealing their votes”. The votes don’t belong to the candidates, they belong to the voters. If $CABLECO wants to preserve their television revenues, they should do so by providing a competitive product that is attractive to customers. If another company is able to provide a more attractive product, then that’s how competition and a free market is supposed to work. What is absolutely contrary to the public interest is allowing $CABLECO to leverage their position as a monopoly or oligopoly ISP to create an operational disadvantage in access for that competing product. The so-called “internet fast lane” is a euphemism for allowing $CABLECO to put competing video products into a newly developed slow-lane while limiting the existing path to their own products and those content providers that are able to and choose to pay these additional fees. Once you follow the money trail to its logical conclusion, at its heart, it’s the epitome of the kind of anti-competitive practices the Sherman act was intended to prevent.
In other words, they use their market power to hurt competitors. While the FCC is getting the news, this should have gone to the FTC because it is clearly an anti-competitive and predatory measure that proves Comcast is using its market power to hurt competitors.
This isn’t limited to $CABLECO. While they’re at the front of this effort, reality is that if it succeeds, incumbents of all flavors will start using this tactic to improve their revenues to the detriment of consumers. Owen
----- Original Message -----
From: "Owen DeLong" <owen@delong.com>
What is absolutely contrary to the public interest is allowing $CABLECO to leverage their position as a monopoly or oligopoly ISP to create an operational disadvantage in access for that competing product.
I was with you right up til here.
The so-called “internet fast lane” is a euphemism for allowing $CABLECO to put competing video products into a newly developed slow-lane while limiting the existing path to their own products and those content providers that are able to and choose to pay these additional fees.
So, how do you explain, and justify -- if you do -- cablecos who use IPTV to deliver their mainline video, and supply VoIP telephone... and use DOCSIS to put that traffic on separate pipes to the end terminal from their IP service, an advantage which providers who might compete with them don't have -- *even*, I think, if they are FCC mandated alternative IP providers who get aggregated access to the cablemodem, as do Earthlink and the local Internet Junction in my market, which can (at least in theory) still be provisioned as your cablemodem supplier for Bright House (Advance/Newhouse) customers. Those are "fast lanes" for TV and Voice traffic, are they not? They are (largely) anticompetitive, and unavailable to other providers. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274
On Apr 29, 2014, at 10:48 AM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Owen DeLong" <owen@delong.com>
What is absolutely contrary to the public interest is allowing $CABLECO to leverage their position as a monopoly or oligopoly ISP to create an operational disadvantage in access for that competing product.
I was with you right up til here.
The so-called “internet fast lane” is a euphemism for allowing $CABLECO to put competing video products into a newly developed slow-lane while limiting the existing path to their own products and those content providers that are able to and choose to pay these additional fees.
So, how do you explain, and justify -- if you do -- cablecos who use IPTV to deliver their mainline video, and supply VoIP telephone...
and use DOCSIS to put that traffic on separate pipes to the end terminal from their IP service, an advantage which providers who might compete with them don't have -- *even*, I think, if they are FCC mandated alternative IP providers who get aggregated access to the cablemodem, as do Earthlink and the local Internet Junction in my market, which can (at least in theory) still be provisioned as your cablemodem supplier for Bright House (Advance/Newhouse) customers.
I don’t explain it, don’t justify it, don’t support it.
Those are “fast lanes" for TV and Voice traffic, are they not?
Carving the pipe up into lanes to begin with is kind of questionable IMHO. I realize it’s tradition, but if you think about it, it was only necessary when things were TDM/FDM. Once everything is IP, dividing the IP up among different TDM/FDM is just a way to take one large fast lane and turn it into slow lanes (some slower than others, perhaps) where some traffic can be given preferential treatment.
They are (largely) anticompetitive, and unavailable to other providers.
Agreed… I thought that’s what I said above. Owen
On 14-04-29 13:48, Jay Ashworth wrote:
So, how do you explain, and justify -- if you do -- cablecos who use IPTV to deliver their mainline video, and supply VoIP telephone...
In Canada, our "net neutrality" rules are called the ITMP, for Internet Traffic Management Practices which occured as a result of Bell Canada throttling P2P and then wanting to charge UBB *solely to manage traffic* (since the UBB rates had nothing to do with costs, they had to do with moderating usage to reduce congestion). The ITMP rules as well as section 27(2) of the Telecommunications Act prevent undue preference and basically states thart if if apply an ITMP (either throttling or UBB) it must be applied evenly to all content. The apply "evenly" was even argued by the incumbents who stated that everyonr had to pay the same UBB rate for all access in order to ensure that the UBB ITMP plays an equal role in moderating usage. (users with ower UBB rates or with some content exempt would then use mroe of the network capacity and cause disproporaionate congestion which would hurt those paying the higher UBB rates) When an incumbent argues that its *broadcasting* service is on different capacity and does not cause congestion to the telecom side of things, then the "broadcasting" service does not have to play by those rules. In the case of cablecos, their TV service uses different frequencies on the coax, so they do not affect data transfers. For Telcos, in the case of Bell, proper use of semantics and propaganda convinced the CRTC that it FibeTV service was on totally different network capacity right up to the DSLAM, and since there was no congestion on the DSL last copper mile, the fact that the two shared the last mile didn't matter because the congestion happened in the aggregation network where FibeTV was already on a separate network. So both cablecos and telcos get their wireline "broadcasting" execpt from the net neutrality rules in Canada. Currently, there is a complaint about wireless TV where the incumbents do not charge UBB for their own TV service, while charging UBB for competing services such as Netflix, or accessing content from a TV station's web site etc. In the last round, they basically admitted that in the case of wireless, those service co-exist with other internet traffic on the same pipe to the handsets. The TV on mobile phones is the first true test of "network neutrality" under the 2009 ITMP rules. Previous complaints had to do with fautly throttling which singled out certain applications like games. The Mobile TV service is one where the incumbents give their own TV service an undue preference. Bell Canada argues that because their TV service is "broadcasting", it is under a different law (Boradcasting Act) and not bound by ITMP rules.
participants (8)
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Daniel Taylor -
Jack Bates -
Jay Ashworth -
Jean-Francois Mezei -
Jeroen Massar -
Larry Sheldon -
Owen DeLong -
Patrick W. Gilmore