Repeal of "Net neutrality"?

If you make money out of YouTube, Netflix, or any other video streaming service, it may. But in any case don't get attached to this thread because I think it will be closed soon XD
 
What, exactly, is being proposed? What are these "net neutrality rules" that are going tone removed?

Fortunately the internet i a self healing system and it will route round problems.

That said quite a few countries censor and control the internet within their borders.
 
Net neutrality means "a byte is a byte" and ISPs can't charge more for each byte to some players than they charge to others. If it is repealed, ISPs will try to get more money from Netflix, YouTube, etc, and if they succeed then there will be less money for creators. The way out is that Google et all would try to become ISPs, so nobody can screw them over. Having net neutrality imposed by law means all these wars can't happen and we can worry about other stuff, but either way it's not the end of the world.
 
Net neutrality makes sense. A byte is a byte

However I think the problem is the volume of bytes from some sources. A bit like charging the owner of a 28 wheel big truck more road tax/toll charges than a small 4 wheels car.

I think I saw some figures that 90% of the internet traffic is video from a few major outfits. YouTube, Net flux etc . the implication is that Youtube, Netflix (and I assume google?) use most of the bandwidth and if in areas where the internet is slow and needs improving it is largely to carry the video traffic from 2 or 3 providers. Therefore they should share some of the costs. After all they make the money on the streaming content,

It is the same with a road. A local town council is not going to build a road that will 95% used by one commercial company....

The problem is that the internet is many 100's of thousands of networks across all 192 countries of the world and as we know it has dynamic routing. I can't see how any one country can start charing etc unless they have total control like in China. Even then it only applies inside that country. In which case the charges will only apply inside that country and I assume be passed on to the users in that country. I recall in the early days of the Internet some ISP's (AOL from memory of 30 years ago) charged for email going externally to their system. This did not last very long as it was impossible to do. Those outside the system simply ignored the charges.

BTW I think this is a valid thread as it is a technical/commercial question so I hope it is not closed. Quite apart from the current US president mentioning it It has been discussed in several other countries as well and you have other countries that do at the moment [attempt to] restrict and control the internet.
 
Essentially net neutrality prevents ISP's from censoring or restricting data streams based on origin or content. It treats the net as a public commons like the phone system where the end users that pay for bandwidth get to choose their communication and content without restriction beyond reasonable bandwidth management practices.
The major ISP's want to charge streaming services a fee for access to "the last mile" local system by local system on top of what they already charge you. No pay, no access. Those services, including all online press as well as major streaming services and social media services, already pay for that service via their local ISP to get on the Net or set up their own very expensive server and network farms.
Eliminating it opens the door to potential unregulated corporate censorship. It is a major free speech issue globally.
 
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I think all countries censor the internet to some extent. If it is only blocking the known list of child porn sites. Of course at the other end you have China who are going for Total Control. The rest are somewhere in the middle but to the more liberal end of the scale and filtering the minim. Pity they can't filter out the spam :-)

The problem is on traffic volume that the ISP's would not need to spend vast amounts of money increasing bandwidth if the top 1/2 dozen streaming services were not using their network. SO, logically it does make sense to say if you want me to spend 1,000,000 on improving my net work just for your streaming service you should pay part of the costs. As it is many/most/all ISP's cap the bandwidth to domestic users one way or another. either explicitly or implicit.

The problem is the networks is many 10's of thousands of ISP's who do Nexflix (other streaming services are available) pay the money too? different amounts to different local ISP's depending on how many users the ISP has? As the Internet is global this is going to cross as many political and legal borders as networks.

This is a commercial technical problem, any censorship problems are ancillary to it. Unless the flittering is specifically , as in some countries like China, political and on subjects and key words not bandwidth
 
Paul F said:
I doubt it.

You posted an article of political nature about a very controversial topic without specifying an opinion or commentary. What is your point?
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Well, the replies to the OP have quite nicely specified the technical and the economic issues involved (someone, of course, had to make a political dig, which I asked to avoid).

And, as stated, this issue has the industry wide effect on which entities will have the upper hand, the creators or the infrastructure providers. In some instances - i.e., Comcast, ex-Time Warner holdings and to a minor extent Google/YouTube - the content creator also owns pieces of infrastructure.

This is the industry portion of the forum. I find my post to be placed appropriately.

PS. I'd think that the repeal of "Net Neutrality" is pretty much a given.
 
Samuel H said:
If you make money out of YouTube, Netflix, or any other video streaming service, it may.
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I think your statement can be expanded to include paying for services like Netflix may cost more because they may need to charge for the "pay to play" option that we might be forced to use.

Why isn't this a big thing in the EU where many homes have 10gb internet with symmetric speeds? I'm lucky to even get a stinking 1mbps upload which pretty much cuts me off as a creator since it takes forever to upload anything of any resolution or length.

As some have said, a bit is a bit and shouldn't matter where it comes from. I'm paying for 20 million bits per second 24 hours a day and seven days a week, I should be able to use them as I see fit.

As far as the tire analogy goes, on toll roads the trucks are charged a toll based on the number of tires on the ground. So a tire is indeed a tire. The trucks do pay other things like extra fuel tax (little sticker on the front bumper) that cars do not pay.
 
Greg_E said:
I think your statement can be expanded to include paying for services like Netflix may cost more because they may need to charge for the "pay to play" option that we might be forced to use.

Why isn't this a big thing in the EU where many homes have 10gb internet with symmetric speeds?
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You will be hard pushed to find anything less that 30-60gb in the UK unless you are in the middle of nowhere. They speeds are not symmetrical. I only get 7gb up. Which can be a pain for uploading.
A lot of residential people I know are on faster download speeds than me but their upload is only 1gb as they are using Virgin fibre which is primarily aimed at supplying entertainment.

Greg_E said:
I'm lucky to even get a stinking 1mbps upload which pretty much cuts me off as a creator since it takes forever to upload anything of any resolution or length.
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I feel your pain.... I used to have a 1gb upload :-( OTOH I can also remember getting my first HIGH SPEED 9600 baud dialup modem... after my 2400 (FULL DULPLEX no less) it was heaven. :-)


Greg_E said:
As some have said, a bit is a bit and shouldn't matter where it comes from. I'm paying for 20 million bits per second 24 hours a day and seven days a week, I should be able to use them as I see fit.
As far as the tire analogy goes, on toll roads the trucks are charged a toll based on the number of tires on the ground. So a tire is indeed a tire. The trucks do pay other things like extra fuel tax (little sticker on the front bumper) that cars do not pay.
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Yes a tyre is a tyre but it is literally the traffic. A Truck has 28 tyres. A car 4. An email 1K bytes a film 2Gb

The problem who pays who... who will Netfliks pay? pro-rata to all the networks they steam over, internationally.... their users are international. It is no use one country deciding to do it if no one else will play. The internet is global and not owned by any one country or company. In fact in some countries the state owns the infrastructure rather than commercial companies.
 
jagraphics said:
The problem who pays who... who will Netfliks pay? pro-rata to all the networks they steam over,
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Netflix has CDNs or Content Delivery Networks ALL OVER THE WORLD that deliver the content DIRECTLY to the internet providers, so in point of fact most Internet service providers do not chew through their own internet bandwidth, the bandwidth that is used for most people is from the provider to the end user.

It is acutally duplicitous or deceiving for ISPs to include Netflix traffic in the internet bandwidth usage. If they have a CDN to them which Netflix pays for, they should have a lower stepped rate for Netflix traffic to the end user.
 
The ISP that services the home is the one that is seeing all the traffic they never wanted to see, also the backbones (like TimeWarner and Sprint). I think it is time for google on some facts... Seems to me that Netflix already pays a premium to TimeWarner (now Spectrum), worth checking to make sure my memory is correct. (yes here it is https://gigaom.com/2014/08/19/netfl...r-cable-for-direct-access-and-faster-streams/ )

The big deal is that services like Netflix stomp on the toes of traditional cable TV delivery. I think this is again the crux of the matter where these cable companies are seeing fewer subscribers because people have choices, I am no longer locked into cable or satellite for TV because I can get most of what I need (though very much delayed in many cases) through Netflix or Hulu. Maybe if cable TV was only $10 a month and provided the ability for me to watch what I want, when I want it...
 
Greg_E said:
The big deal is that services like Netflix stomp on the toes of traditional cable TV delivery. I think this is again the crux of the matter where these cable companies are seeing fewer subscribers because people have choices, I am no longer locked into cable or satellite for TV because I can get most of what I need (though very much delayed in many cases) through Netflix or Hulu. Maybe if cable TV was only $10 a month and provided the ability for me to watch what I want, when I want it...
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Now I understand.. cable is a delivery method that is common in the US but a lot less so in the rest of the world.
 
DLD said:
(there are some political statements/opinion within the article but we can stay above them ... can't we?)
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How? It's a black and white political call. Either you have net neutrality or you don't. There's no gray area here.

This is like encryption. Either you have it, or you don't. There's no half way (like a government mandated back door).
 
jagraphics said:
I think all countries censor the internet to some extent. If it is only blocking the known list of child porn sites. Of course at the other end you have China who are going for Total Control. The rest are somewhere in the middle but to the more liberal end of the scale and filtering the minim. Pity they can't filter out the spam :-)
Click to expand...

If you want to read something, both eye opening, and sad, (and a little bit vile) there
is a story that I recently read about those people in charge of 'content moderating'
for companies like Facebook. After reading it, I'm not so sure that censorship is as
bad of a word as I was thinking. All a matter of degrees.
https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/
 
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