I said I was neutral, and I pretty much said that ISPs had done their fair share of less-than-desirable behavior.
Video streaming was a relatively newly-mainstream technology when Netflix began streaming. The networks, up to that point, had the capacity they needed for the traffic they had, plus a little extra. That wasn't even a drop in the bucket compared to what they needed to support that (and YouTube). Should a change by one company drive a mandatory, force-of-law upgrade on another, with no remuneration for the latter company? I say "no" to that. I also say "no" to government taking tax dollars and giving them to the latter company to pay for those mandatory upgrades. So, who pays - the consumer of the service, or the service responsible for the bottleneck?
I do think some regulation is necessary; you need that in any monopoly/non-competitive scenario to prevent unfair practices. I just don't see the net falling over if the current proposal takes effect as planned.
I'll second your fandom of Ting; I've had my phone service with them for years. :) Do you think their stance on Internet service gives them a market advantage if the current proposal is enacted?
A discussion of who pays isn't really relevant today. The rise of video streaming services has already happened, upgrades have already happened. Maybe it would be interesting historical analysis to know "Who did pay at the time?" And compare that to the general laws of supply and demand: As demand increases and supply remains constant, the price to consumers goes up. I believe the case can be made that Netflix and perhaps other video services did already pay for those upgrades. So supply and demand didn't apply to bandwidth, and it would be interesting to examine why.
The net won't fall over, and for most it won't even be any different. It's just another erosion factor. Another setup for companies to be anti-competitive. Example: Verizon (who already has been shady) launched their own video-on-demand service. If these changes happen, what are the chances that they throttle other video services but send their own down the pipe full blast? Nearly 100%. And if particularly egregious in their throttling, they might be sued for it too. But they will still do it because the short term benefit is too tempting for your typical executive to pass up.
Ting is awesome. They have great promise in the ISP segment, but are beholden to the pace at which municipalities can get things done. AFAIK, they require the municipality to own their local fiber and then they will manage the internet service over it, including customer service. I do hope it becomes more common. But I also hope that municipal governments don't try to manage their own internet. One of the many things that governments are hopelessly inefficient at (and have no incentive to do well) is customer service.
Ting's mobile service is much more generally applicable, and of course it provides mobile internet as well (over common mobile carriers like T-Mobile and Sprint). I think their net neutrality / privacy stances will encourage some people to switch to them. But I don't think they do it for that reason. I really think they are just trying to do the right thing for customers.
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I said I was neutral, and I pretty much said that ISPs had done their fair share of less-than-desirable behavior.
Video streaming was a relatively newly-mainstream technology when Netflix began streaming. The networks, up to that point, had the capacity they needed for the traffic they had, plus a little extra. That wasn't even a drop in the bucket compared to what they needed to support that (and YouTube). Should a change by one company drive a mandatory, force-of-law upgrade on another, with no remuneration for the latter company? I say "no" to that. I also say "no" to government taking tax dollars and giving them to the latter company to pay for those mandatory upgrades. So, who pays - the consumer of the service, or the service responsible for the bottleneck?
I do think some regulation is necessary; you need that in any monopoly/non-competitive scenario to prevent unfair practices. I just don't see the net falling over if the current proposal takes effect as planned.
I'll second your fandom of Ting; I've had my phone service with them for years. :) Do you think their stance on Internet service gives them a market advantage if the current proposal is enacted?
A discussion of who pays isn't really relevant today. The rise of video streaming services has already happened, upgrades have already happened. Maybe it would be interesting historical analysis to know "Who did pay at the time?" And compare that to the general laws of supply and demand: As demand increases and supply remains constant, the price to consumers goes up. I believe the case can be made that Netflix and perhaps other video services did already pay for those upgrades. So supply and demand didn't apply to bandwidth, and it would be interesting to examine why.
The net won't fall over, and for most it won't even be any different. It's just another erosion factor. Another setup for companies to be anti-competitive. Example: Verizon (who already has been shady) launched their own video-on-demand service. If these changes happen, what are the chances that they throttle other video services but send their own down the pipe full blast? Nearly 100%. And if particularly egregious in their throttling, they might be sued for it too. But they will still do it because the short term benefit is too tempting for your typical executive to pass up.
Ting is awesome. They have great promise in the ISP segment, but are beholden to the pace at which municipalities can get things done. AFAIK, they require the municipality to own their local fiber and then they will manage the internet service over it, including customer service. I do hope it becomes more common. But I also hope that municipal governments don't try to manage their own internet. One of the many things that governments are hopelessly inefficient at (and have no incentive to do well) is customer service.
Ting's mobile service is much more generally applicable, and of course it provides mobile internet as well (over common mobile carriers like T-Mobile and Sprint). I think their net neutrality / privacy stances will encourage some people to switch to them. But I don't think they do it for that reason. I really think they are just trying to do the right thing for customers.