Can anyone explain net neutrality stuff in basic wording?

Page 1 of 1 [ 11 posts ] 

zeldapsychology
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 May 2008
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,431
Location: Florida

18 May 2014, 9:42 pm

Basic language I understand. It's back forth OMG! FCC government allowing throttling on what was once a free internet OMG! I've also heard Comcast has already made a deal with Netflix. I'm curious how it will EFFECT ME! Here's my life set up (and how I understand the issue tech knowledgeable Aspies maybe you can help me.) Are they throttling it to a certain GB like cellphones?

1) videogames (It takes 12+ hrs. to download about 10 games from PSN so keeping the same speed as now I don't see any up or downside. (Most of those 10 games were 1.5 GB or less so YES s**t TOTAL s**t Internet!! !! ! Wifi speed ISSUE! Can't afford more though sadly.

2)Yes LOVE Netflix but keeping the same no problem BUT if example Comcast has faster speeds than issue but keeping once again our same speeds then fine.

3) online Amazon.com shopping (lightning deals) blocking access could be of issue.

4) videos online but most 99% of that is server loads I KNOW E3 streams will be OVERLOADED and freezing etc. ALWAYS DOES EVERY YEAR! Nintendo froze/shutdown in parts. But that's more overload server and nothing Net neutrality related.

Otherwise I question how is my internet usage going to change if this FCC Net Neutrality thing goes through or whatever the bitching is about??? Compared to my life and how I use the internet. We have less than 10mbps (getting higher would be $100+ a month family can't afford that.) But it meets our needs. (As long as everyone in the house isn't on Netflix!!)

Thanks! Tech Aspies!



buffinator
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 17 Dec 2013
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 651
Location: Illinois

18 May 2014, 10:09 pm

Net neutrality means that the Internet service provider (ISP) or government can't choose which traffic gets more priority. Getting rid of net neutrality creates "premium" traffic and non-premium traffic.

Essentially, the ISP can now say: I don't like your website, so it's going to be slower or not work at all. So for example, if they don't like wrong planet, they can make it so slow it will barely work.

What the companies are doing right now, since net neutrality has been removed, is creating "premium speeds." Essentially, they slowed down the entire internet and said that if companies want their web content to go at full speed they have to pay millions of dollars extra each year.

For netflix, in the 2 weeks after the rules changed their service became almost unusable, it took hours to load a video and it would stop to buffer frequently. This was done intentionally by comcast to coerce netflix into paying a "ransom" for their bandwidth. So they now have to pay comcast, time warner, and other ISP's millions of dollars a year to get the same speeds as before. Specifically comcast is charging netflix 50million$/yr. This is part of the reason Netflix is having to cancel some shows and raise their rates. If netflix were to decide not to pay the fee their service would become extremely slow and unusable.

The same can be said of any website, but what about websites that can afford to pay 50million dollars a year? lets say you start a new business and set up a website, but comcast wants you to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for the website to load pictures in a timely fassion, you will be unable to start your business unless you are rich.

And what about websites that don't generate very much revenue? ISP's hate torrents and under the new rules can essentially shut down torrenting, even for legitimate purposes.

Without net neutrality, ISP's and governments can engage in an indirect form of censorship that will inhibit the free flow of ideas and information on the internet and will stifle innovation.

EDIT: So, what happened before is that everyone pays a base amt to be connected to the internet, but users pay for bandwidth to receive and content providers pay for bandwidth to send information. So if you want to download a movie you can use your entire bandwidth to do so.

Now everyone still pays to be connected, but the content of the bandwith is also billed. So if netflix doesn't pay up, you might only be able to receive a video from them at 1/4th of your bandwidth, even though you paid for more total bandwith you will have an arbitrary netflix-only cap on bandwith. Unless netflix pays the fee, then you will have full bandwith, but netflix will suffer.

this is an example with arbitrary numbers, however, as Comcast can set whatever speed they want not. Decide what content to allow on their network. Our internet will become like china's, with bureaucrats deciding what content is allowed or not. But whereas china's "great firewall" is political in nature, the control granted to private companies with the fall of net neutrality will be used to exploit all users of the internet for maximum profit.


_________________
AQ: 31
Your Aspie score: 135 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 63 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie


Last edited by buffinator on 18 May 2014, 10:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

zeldapsychology
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 May 2008
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,431
Location: Florida

18 May 2014, 10:17 pm

Thanks that explains it better. I know WP isn't a $50 million company website. I was talking to my friend though and I feel most BIG retail make so much they are relatively safe. Amazon/Walmart/Best Buy etc. most of these online retailers make more than brick and mortar and get most of there holidays sales from there online component. Now researching for a term paper can be of issue. I noticed slow down on Netflix too a while back. Wonder what would happen to all the can't afford $50 million sites they'd probably seece to exist and have to shut down or be unusable. I'd hate for that to happen to WP or IGN ( a gaming site I frequent). There are millions of sites how it can be throttled like that is crazy! Facebook can DIE I don't care if it's throttled but I still need my WP/Amazon/IGN fix (among other sites I surf on occasion.) Cracked/Kotaku and such. Thanks



sliqua-jcooter
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Jan 2010
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,488
Location: Burke, Virginia, USA

19 May 2014, 12:04 am

No. Not even a little bit.

A) the netflix/comcast deal had absolutely nothing to do with net neutrality
B) The FCC rules do not allow throttling of speeds based on source/destination websites, they merely allow service providers to do what they've already been doing since the Internet began (QoS via Class-of-Service)
C) The hardware required to throttle traffic to/from specific websites would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and would be much more expensive to implement than the providers would ever hope to make back


_________________
Nothing posted here should be construed as the opinion or position of my company, or an official position of WrongPlanet in any way, unless specifically mentioned.


buffinator
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 17 Dec 2013
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 651
Location: Illinois

19 May 2014, 7:27 am

sliqua-jcooter wrote:
No. Not even a little bit.

A) the netflix/comcast deal had absolutely nothing to do with net neutrality
B) The FCC rules do not allow throttling of speeds based on source/destination websites, they merely allow service providers to do what they've already been doing since the Internet began (QoS via Class-of-Service)
C) The hardware required to throttle traffic to/from specific websites would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and would be much more expensive to implement than the providers would ever hope to make back


NO, you are wrong. A federal court struck down those rules for broadband ISPs. The FCC is currently headed by a ex-lobbyist(ex, right) for Time Warner cable. He is, in fact, drafting new rules that very much allow for and facilitate content based filtering.

The netflix deal DID have everything to do with net neutrality: netflix is now paying not only for their link to the network, as before, but for the utalization of that link. This is new as it creates a distinction between paying for a high-speed internet and high-sustained-throughput internet, which is the whole issue. If you think the deal, which was taken to resolve issues with comcast's service to netflix 2 weeks after the federal ruling, to resolve issues that began the day after the ruling, had nothing to do with the federal ruling that net neutrality rules do not apply to broadband service providers... well. upon hearing the parable of the apple hitting newton on the head, did you conclude that apples must float?

and point C is utterly wrong, it's quite easy to throttle the point of origin for high usage web traffic, which is what comcast did to netflix. They don't have to determine if the traffic is a WMV, buy if they see x gb/s of web traffic they can place artificial limits on how much traffic can flow, disrupting service. They already trottle individual IP's. The soft/hardware is built into your modem. Comcast throttles user's dataflow all the time. The modem monitors your traffic, determines your usage patterns, and essentially disconnects you from the network during downtimes. Comcast has already settled suits on that matter in many different instances. When it happens to end-users its not that much of an issue, but when it happens to content sources it disrupts the free flow of information.

"Broadband is currently classified by the FCC as an information service, a category that gives the agency a fairly limited set of regulatory options. If Internet providers were classified instead as common carriers, the FCC's rule would likely stand. In fact, the federal ruling on Tuesday upheld the FCC's net neutrality rules as a matter of principle; the problem is that the agency effectively tried to apply its powers in the wrong context" (w.post).

point 3 is just ignorant. Comcast already has this capability. Even if comcast doesn't directly build the infrastructure for this capability, thats what "contracting it out" is for. 3rd parties will be more than happy to provide the initial investment to develop the capacity.

"In November 2007, Comcast's limiting of torrent applications was confirmed by a study conducted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in which public domain literature is distributed over peer-to-peer networks. Analysis of the EFF study found "strong evidence that Comcast is using packet-forging to disrupt peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing on their network".[23] The studies showed that Comcast prevents distribution of files over peer-to-peer networks by sending a RST packet under the guise of the end user, and denying the connection, which effectively blocks the user from seeding over BitTorrent. Legal controversy arises because instead of simple filtering, Comcast is sending RST packets to Comcast customers, pretending to be the host user at the other end of the BitTorrent connection.[24] Comcast's BitTorrent throttling is a partnership with Sandvine."

what is sandvine???
"Sandvine has helped more than 80 operators worldwide, with fixed, mobile, and converged access networks, deploy new subscriber services that increase revenue and customer loyalty, including:

Usage-based billing (UBB)
Bill-shock prevention
Zero-rating for Facebook, Whatsapp, and other services
Differentiated service tiers to stand out in the market
Prepaid and postpaid services
Third-party promotions
Shared data plans that bridge devices and access technologies
"

"zero-rating" is a way of analyzing data to determine what is for, for billing purposes. For example, if your facebook data were not "zero rated" than the tracking cookies would eat up all of your monthly data. This same concept, applied to broadband networks is what allowed comcast to throttle netflix's streaming content so easily and quickly when the anti-FCC ruling came down. In short: the capability already exists and your analysis of the cost-benefit-analysis to broadband providers does not reflect the facts.

Yes, there are rules that prohibit content based filtering, but they pretty much only apply to Netscape users. And the current head of the FCC has zero intention of bringing broadband providers in line because most of his compensation from his lobbying days came in the form of stock options. So while you are technically correct, for the people who use high speed internet, the rules are meaningless.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the ... ity-rules/
http://consumerist.com/2009/12/25/comca ... g-lawsuit/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009 ... ettlement/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Comcast
https://www.sandvine.com/
https://www.sandvine.com/downloads/gene ... raffic.pdf


_________________
AQ: 31
Your Aspie score: 135 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 63 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie


Last edited by buffinator on 19 May 2014, 9:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

sliqua-jcooter
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Jan 2010
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,488
Location: Burke, Virginia, USA

19 May 2014, 8:27 am

As an owner of an ISP, you'd think I would have a firm grasp on the rules that regulate my own industry. But no, it appears that I've been bested by a random person on the Internet. Wait, no...

buffinator wrote:
A federal court struck down those rules for broadband ISPs. The FCC is currently headed by a ex-lobbyist(ex, right) for Time Warner cable. He is, in fact, drafting new rules that very much allow for and facilitate content based filtering.


The reason that the rules were struck down by Verizon, is that they used the argument that they deliver TV service over their IP network, but it doesn't count against a user's bandwidth limitations, because it's a separate class of service. The new rules reflect this reality, saying that content providers can strike deals with ISPs for preferential treatment, but the agreement must be "commercially reasonable". Which means, according to the FCC, that if a user pays for a given amount of bandwidth, that amount of bandwidth is given to them to use in any way they want, and cannot be throttled. However, if a broadband provider wants to strike a deal with content providers to provide service in excess of that class of service, they can.

This sums the new proposal up nicely: http://mashable.com/2014/05/15/fcc-net- ... -proposal/


_________________
Nothing posted here should be construed as the opinion or position of my company, or an official position of WrongPlanet in any way, unless specifically mentioned.


buffinator
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 17 Dec 2013
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 651
Location: Illinois

19 May 2014, 9:21 am

sliqua-jcooter wrote:
As an owner of an ISP, you'd think I would have a firm grasp on the rules that regulate my own industry. But no, it appears that I've been bested by a random person on the Internet. Wait, no...

buffinator wrote:
A federal court struck down those rules for broadband ISPs. The FCC is currently headed by a ex-lobbyist(ex, right) for Time Warner cable. He is, in fact, drafting new rules that very much allow for and facilitate content based filtering.


The reason that the rules were struck down by Verizon, is that they used the argument that they deliver TV service over their IP network, but it doesn't count against a user's bandwidth limitations, because it's a separate class of service. The new rules reflect this reality, saying that content providers can strike deals with ISPs for preferential treatment, but the agreement must be "commercially reasonable". Which means, according to the FCC, that if a user pays for a given amount of bandwidth, that amount of bandwidth is given to them to use in any way they want, and cannot be throttled. However, if a broadband provider wants to strike a deal with content providers to provide service in excess of that class of service, they can.

This sums the new proposal up nicely: http://mashable.com/2014/05/15/fcc-net- ... -proposal/


Yeah... THATS WHAT WE ARE SO PISSED ABOUT! we aren't disagreeing about what is happening, we are disagreeing about whether it is right. What qualifies as "service in excess of that class of service?" Is it like a "sale" at a clothing store, where they market the "original" price as 100$ and "mark it down" to 50$, even though it has never been sold at 100$? The problem with the rules is when the current level of service is defined as "excess class of service," and the standard form of service becomes diminished in order to facilitate creating new quality levels of service without actually improving the quality of service.

This is actually quite funny, because I understand that your thought is "if they want to utilize the service more, why can't I charge more?" and the answer is that while you may be motivated by edging out a few extra dollars from some of your customers, others might use the same power in a political way to influence the information consumers have access to or that businesses can put out.


_________________
AQ: 31
Your Aspie score: 135 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 63 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie


sliqua-jcooter
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Jan 2010
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,488
Location: Burke, Virginia, USA

19 May 2014, 11:40 am

buffinator wrote:
What qualifies as "service in excess of that class of service?"


It's service that doesn't count toward your bandwidth cap. IE Verizon FiOS streaming TV that doesn't count toward your bandwidth cap. Class of service and Quality of service are not marketing terms or business terms, they are technical terms with very specific definitions.


_________________
Nothing posted here should be construed as the opinion or position of my company, or an official position of WrongPlanet in any way, unless specifically mentioned.


sliqua-jcooter
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Jan 2010
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,488
Location: Burke, Virginia, USA

19 May 2014, 11:48 am

buffinator wrote:
The netflix deal DID have everything to do with net neutrality: netflix is now paying not only for their link to the network, as before, but for the utalization of that link.


No, they're paying for a direct link between them and Comcast, as opposed to paying for a link with their ISP which has a link with Comcast, which was saturated. They bypassed the bottleneck and paid for a link to Comcast. This has nothing to do with net neutrality - especially since, as a condition of the merger between Comcast and NBC, the old FCC rules on net neutrality still apply to Comcast.

http://www.cnet.com/news/comcast-vs-net ... eutrality/


_________________
Nothing posted here should be construed as the opinion or position of my company, or an official position of WrongPlanet in any way, unless specifically mentioned.


michael517
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 3 Nov 2013
Age: 60
Gender: Female
Posts: 535
Location: Illinois

19 May 2014, 12:14 pm

I can, in one word. MONEY!

Everything else is the layers of BS that they try to hide it in.



eric76
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 31 Aug 2012
Gender: Male
Posts: 10,660
Location: In the heart of the dust bowl

19 May 2014, 3:02 pm

buffinator wrote:
Essentially, the ISP can now say: I don't like your website, so it's going to be slower or not work at all. So for example, if they don't like wrong planet, they can make it so slow it will barely work.


There has never been a law that says that the ISP cannot block web sites.

I came across this back in the mid 1990s when one network refused to carry any traffic from a web site ran by a spammer known as Spamford Wallace. I really wanted to read his rant against us anti-spammers but couldn't because I had no route to get there. And that was perfectly legal.

From what I read the other day, there are now some pending changes to the FCC rules that include requirements that ISPs carry the traffic from any and all web sites.

I'm curious if the ISP would be able to block traffic to web sites carrying malicious payloads that could infect their customer's computers with very malicious viruses (virii?) and other malware.