[Newsbot]

Title: Any lawful device: Revisiting Carterfone on the eve of the Net Neutrality vote
Category: Tech
Posted By: DrCaleb
Date: 2017-12-14 06:15:48
Canadian

[DrCaleb]

This FCC ruling (and a similar one by the CRTC) meant that we could have things like answering machines and cordless phones. The innovation it spurred is exactly what removing net neutrality will remove from today's marketplace.

[Thanos]

Be interesting to see how the conspiracy chuds in the US react after Trump monetizes the entire internet and they have to pay big bucks to access their favourite demented lunacy sites. Oh, mama, everyone truly is finally getting what they deserve!

[DrCaleb]

Another instance of repealing Obama era rules, just because, and how it will bite them in the ass.

The only provisions in it, are a watchdog to monitor that the ISPs are living up to their 'promises'. Well, if they make none, then they have nothing to live up to.

[DrCaleb]

I'd hope that Congress would do something, but since most of them are already bought and paid for by Telecoms, I'm fresh out of optimism.

[BartSimpson]

Part of the problem for the ISPs is that some of them have shit service...like Frontier which serves mostly rural areas over copper wire.

If these ISPs can throttle bandwidth hogs like Netflix (which throttles their own customers as a 'feature') then they provide better email service and etc. to their customers.

See, Netflix is using everyone else's bandwidth to make billions of dollars while fucking up service for people in rural areas.

On a whole I like net neutrality, but it's in these details where I don't like it as it's a subsidy to the major corporations whose business model depends on free bandwidth.

And I hate subsidies.

[DrCaleb]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Part of the problem for the ISPs is that some of them have shit service...like Frontier which serves mostly rural areas over copper wire.

I thought this might come up. From the FCCs own Broadband Deployment Report smaller ISPs were deploying to more areas - after Obama's net neutrality rules were enacted.

$1:

ISP doubled its rural coverage

One of the five ISPs that Pai says was harmed by the rules, AirLink Internet Services in Oklahoma, "more than doubled the number of rural Census blocks in which it offered service after the adoption of the [February] 2015 decision it criticizes," Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood wrote in a new FCC filing.

The data AirLink submitted to the FCC shows that it went from serving 1,482 rural Census blocks at the end of 2014 to more than 3,000 rural blocks by mid-year 2016, he wrote. The company expanded in urban Census blocks as well, going "from 4,251 such blocks to 7,108—an increase of more than 67 percent."

The population served by AirLink increased by 64 percent in rural areas and 59 percent in urban areas, Wood wrote.

Three of the other four providers grew in size. For example, "InvisiMax [in Minnesota and North Dakota] expanded its coverage by 42 percent in terms of the number of rural blocks reported, and by more than 15 percent in urban blocks. Its population coverage expanded by 23.4 percent and 22.5 percent in rural and urban blocks, respectively."

The fifth provider, Amplex Internet in Ohio, is the only one of the five "that did not report an increase in terms of its geographic service territory, population coverage, or both," Wood wrote.

But Amplex went from having no gigabit-speed fiber offerings at the end of 2014 to having "fiber-to-the-home service availability in at least 18 census blocks" by mid-2016. The company offers 1Gbps upload and download speeds for $80 a month.

Sjoberg's Inc., a cable ISP in Minnesota, went from zero Census blocks with fiber to 109 Census blocks with fiber during the same period.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/201 ... otherwise/

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

If these ISPs can throttle bandwidth hogs like Netflix (which throttles their own customers as a 'feature') then they provide better email service and etc. to their customers.

Netflix isn't the hog, the customer is. And Netflix will give ISPs a dedicated streaming server so that data stays within their own network, eliminating extra fees.

And Netflix isn't the only website out there. Refer back to my article on Portugal's experiment with tiered internet, and see how much freedom it brings them.

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

See, Netflix is using everyone else's bandwidth to make billions of dollars while fucking up service for people in rural areas.

Netflix is just using the Internet for what it was intended to do, connect people. Data is data, people use it however they want. Do I get charged more because I'm dialing 800 numbers all day long? No, my phone line is one price. Do I get charged more for electricity because I use Netflix? No, it's one rate.

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

On a whole I like net neutrality, but it's in these details where I don't like it as it's a subsidy to the major corporations whose business model depends on free bandwidth.

And I hate subsidies.

How is Netflix subsidized in any way? People pay for bandwidth, and use it how they wish. Where is the subsidy?

[herbie]

$1:

See, Netflix is using everyone else's bandwidth to make billions of dollars while fucking up service for people in rural areas.

No shit. After 20 years as a rural ISP, we had to throttle first Bit Torrents, then Netflix to deliver any worthwhile service to customers. We did have a premium service, but absolutely no one would pay extra, so I got out.
Know how the next owner got over the problem? More than doubled the rates so basic service was more than we'd offered the premium service for, PLUS an installation fee for new equipment (with over 100% markup on cost of parts). People had no choice, they paid up when choice was removed from the equation. Bitched like hell but paid up.
Even with that, they had to increase their backbone 10X to keep up with rising bandwidth demand and eventually sold out to yet another outfit that with multiple POPs in other towns that got backbone at a much lower price.
Also getting too old to climb towers and muck about on people's roofs and hearing the incessant BULLSHIT that 'the other guys' charged like $12 a month for 150Mb service was just too much. I mean this IS a town where people will look you dead in the eye and tell you they can drive 400km to town and back in their F350 4x4 for 'about $10'.

[CharlesAnthony]

Net neutrality? Meh.

How about abolishing the FCC and the CRTC instead?