So who here wants the government to rule the internet

I already paid, they pay their ISP, no they should not pay more on top of that

your basically admitting to supporting this - lol, so much for wanting a free internet

your basically saying when the isp sells us 100\10 speeds, we should not actually be able to use those speeds unless the other side pays them too

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OK well that's very enlightening. You really do think a corporation that used 1/3 of the internet bandwidth of North America on any given night should pay the same as the old granny who checks her email a couple of times a week. I would say that's insane, but is it really insane when so many people think that's entirely reasonable?

Free Internet....there is no such thing. I really do think I've gotten a breakthrough on understanding you guys here. You are totally delusional. There honestly isn't anything that's free. Someone has to pay for it. That's a lesson that should have been learned by the time you were 12 or so.

 

That's where we are headed now. Comcast and Time Warner just keep on absorbing and have their city monopolies all over the place. It would be nice if a proposal were on the table to create competition rather than either classify the internet as an old phone service or let Comcast just (*)(*)(*)(*) it up.

 

Yes, the internet exists without Comcast. They don't own it, though they wish they did. Also, and I'm pretty sure I already said this, no one else is a viable alternative to Comcast here. I tried, it didn't work, they simply did not have the speed to stream video. As for your last question you must be ignoring what I'm saying entirely to think I want a big government solution like what is being proposed. I want the government to do its job and end the local resource monopolies companies like Comcast have. To me that is the best solution. If there is actual competition then Comcast can shut down whatever parts of the net it wants, and I and many others will leave them. Until there is a viable alternative though I am stuck with them, and so are their other customers.

 

What the person you quoted is saying is not insane at all. What Comcast is doing is like a bar charging Coors more because their beer is so popular with their customers that they are facing the point where they may need to install more taps. That's insane, and it is what Comcast is doing to Netflix. The really (*)(*)(*)(*) part is going to be when it's not Netflix, but everyone being charged by Comcast in order to have reasonable speeds for their websites, despite the fact that people are using Comcast to get to that content to begin with. Very dirty business, kind of thing that would get a man punched in the face if they tried to do it to you personally.

 

the cable companies do not own the internet, they are just a connecting point.... and they sell those connection, if they can't handle the bandwidth, then they should not sell it, if they sell 100\10, then they should not slow down connections below 100\10

 

Well the government did give their approval for the Comcast-Time Warner merger, somehow determining it wasn't anti-competitive if they were one single company. Thankfully that seems to be on the back burner right now, but I think the government plans for that as the future anyway.

 

I'm not a Comcast customer, and based on this thread, it seems the most of the drive for net neutrality, besides hope and change of course, is that people really seem to hate Comcast. Somehow, no matter what happens, I think Comcast is going to be fine. "Net Neutrality" or not, I don't think Comcast will make you happy.

I'm a business customer, since my company pays for my home internet connection, and it seems that internet providers are pretty solicitous to their business customers. Apparently they think companies have other alternatives, and in fact, at least in my area, they do; they have the option of DSL. But I did learn that my internet provider sells various packages of various speeds to different customers. To me that seems normal but somehow on this thread it seems like a totally crazy business model, so I dunno...

And as for your example, I don't get it. If Coors was super popular and the supply was limited, I can't imagine a bar not raising it's prices and trying to increase their supply. The bar neutrality people would apparently want the bar to sell their super popular Coors for the same price as the no name generic beer until the Coors was exhausted, then what, nobody gets any beer?

 

Exactly. Unfortunately Comcast is also trying to be a control point so as to double dip and profit off both ends.

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I wouldn't doubt that the government will let them merge. Unfortunately our anti-monopoly laws are a joke. It's good on the one hand because applied to rigidly they could be a real issue. On the other hand what's going with high speed internet is a joke.

 

The supply isn't being limited by Coors, the supply is limited by the bars infrastructure. The bar is generating a large amount of business due to Coors excellent product (I know, just pretend). If the bar were to take the Comcast route then rather than work up their infrastructure to better supply the demand they instead charge Coors because Coors is making what the people want (again, pretend). There's no limit of Coors other than the bars infrastructure; Coors is willing and able to supply all its customers with beer. The problem as at the end service, the bar (Comcast). They are the ones that don't have the infrastructure to meet demand, and thus are charing Coors

 

Oh, you think Comcast is doing nothing to expand it's infrastructure. I doubt that's a case.

 

No, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that Comcast is saying that because Netflix is popular and people (their customers) using Netflix is flooding their infrastructure that they are charging Netflix to expand their (Comcasts) infrastructure, much like our theoretical bar is charging Coors to add taps. You can see easily how this doesn't make any sense, but that's what's happening. The real problem comes from Comcast expanding that model to the point where any and all websites must pay for that access point. Instead of the open and free internet we have now, if unchecked, we would essentially have the internet that Comcast wishes to provide, which is the internet for whatever services are paying them, with of course theirs for less. IF, and I can not state IF enough, there were competition for highspeed (as in realistic) internet providers then this would not be a problem at all; people could simply switch providers and get similar service only without restriction. However with the local cable monopolies this is not an option for more people. That is where the problem lies, and where the real solution lies. Unfortunately getting a real, workable solution is way too much to ask of our government because, well, look at the people we elect and continue to elect time and time again. To them our only options are let Comcast rule the net or run the net as though it's a telephone, both terrible options.

 

I'm sorry but I just can't agree. I don't think this has anything to do with your view that the eventual end point is that websites would have to pay an ISP, in this case Comcast, for access to their customers. That's not what Netflix is doing. And if Netflix wasn't able to pay for extra servers at the ISP level, they probably wouldn't be in business.

And that's why your bar analogy breaks down, because it doesn't describe the situation that Netflix is really in. Under your scenario, what you really are saying is that the bar has ten taps, and Coors wants 9 of them just for Coors. The situation is more like the bar has ten taps, and Coors offers to pay to install 9 more for Coors on Coor's dime. I don't have a problem with that and I'm not sure why you do.

 

Can you show me articles where Netflix was forcing Comcast to divert network traffic? I have seen it done on the other end where Comcast slowed down traffic from Netflix until Netflix paid them money, but I have not seen Netflix going after Comcast. Maybe every article I've read has simply been miswritten and Comcast is really the victim here, but I highly doubt it because it doesn't make sense that Netflix could somehow force Comcast to do anything; all I've seen is the opposite. From what I've seen Comcast doesn't want to pony up and pay to expand its infrastructure, and so they're instead going after Netflix and saying "well you're a popular service, pay us to upgrade our infrastructure." It's absolutely crooked. It's like selling oranges though a delivery service and because business is so good for you and the delivery service they demand you buy them more trucks to deliver your product or they'll slow down deliveries.

 

Perhaps I'm not expressing myself well since you don't seem to have understood really a single thing I've written. Your responses never address what I said and seem to go off on some new tangent. You've just come back around to a part of the discussion that I thought we had already covered, so I don't know what to tell you, other than you're probably going to get your way. Even though there is no law to support this sort of legislation, the courts have ruled against it and Congress has refused to give the FCC the enabling legislation that they want, we seem to be governed less by law now and more by press release and administrative directive. It seems, based on the responses on the pro-"net neutrality" crowd, that you guys don't really care about due process so it's all moot. I suppose the FCC will basically be able to do whatever it wants, regardless of what Congress and the Courts say, so I hope you like the new arrangement.

 

I'm really not a fan of having the FCC control the internet but I also cannot accept Comcast simply running the net the way they see fit. I've given you the comparisons and you can see where what Comcast has done doesn't make sense. The only reason Netflix couldn't just hold out and refuse to pay is because there is competition in their market, including from Comcast (which of course would come at speed since Comcast wouldn't throttle their own service). There is no competition on Comcast's part which is why they were able to make the move they did. Since they essentially have a series of local resource monopolies something needs to be done to prevent exactly what Comcast did from happening. The best solution would be to introduce competition into the market, but I'm not a network engineer and I don't know how well multiple cable services running over the same cable lines would work. If it cannot be done then the next solution is to have government create the necessary infrastructure and then rent it out to multiple companies. That would be the best solution, but there is a large upfront cost. It also charges government with the responsibility of upgrading and maintaining our internet infrastructure and lets face it they couldn't maintain an erection during a threesome with the hottest girls ever seen and fist fulls of Viagra. I don't like what's being put on the table, but we cannot continue the status quo. If there is no competition in a market, especially one that provides infrastructure, then government needs to over see it. This is why your power company can't just up and charge more during summer when your AC is on and your gas company can't charge you more when it's cold and your heater is on.

 

Comcast and Netflix settled the issue without government so now there is no problem yet government is going to fix a non-issue by taking over the internet with regulations.

 

That's like saying that you paid someone who was extorting you so everything's fine. It's not fine at all. Comcast is still a company filled with local resource monopolies which is why they were able to extort Netflix in the first place. Nothing is solved and unless something is done things are only going to get worse as Comcast expands their extortion.

 

LOL, yeah, you need government interference when there is no problem. Netflix had other problems with intermediate servers that had nothing to do with Comcast.

 

You seem to think that new FCC regulations are going to do what you want. Since they are secret you are taking a lot on faith.

However I predict that if these go through, in about 5 or 6 years I'll be seeing on this forum comments about the "Republican net neutrality" and how this is all the Republicans fault for screwing up the internet.

Of course, that's assuming I'll be able to log on then.

 

Not sure what you are talking about. What I am talking about is Comcast throttling Netflix traffic until Netflix paid Comcast.

 

I don't think the FCC regulations will do what I want. I thought that was clear when my proposed best solution was nothing close what is on the table. Unfortunately my solution isn't going to happen, so we have to regulate the industry because local resource monopolies are not going to be broken up. It's that or we let Comcast and other IPSs decide what the net will be like for everyone. Sure you have a choice, you could go with dial up or slightly faster, but it would be like Amazon choosing to use commuter bikes rather than FedEx, just not reasonable.

 

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai: Net Neutrality is a "Solution That Won't Work to a Problem That Doesn't Exist"

Soros, Ford shovel $196 million to 'net neutrality' groups, staff to White House

Billions in new fees that you will end up paying.