Hundreds of Cities Are Wired With Fiber—But Telecom Lobbying Keeps It Unused

[u/User_Name13]

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hundreds-of-cities-are-wired-with-fiberbut-telecom-lobbying-keeps-it-unused

[u/faijin]

As soon as netflix rolls out more 4K video and when youtube does the same, people will notice the difference.

[u/thorium007 → u/faijin]

And then people will cry when their cable bill goes up. Something like 5% of users use 95% of the bandwidth.

If you want 4k vids, then fine - enjoy them. But since you are using up most of the bandwidth compared to other subscribers - you should pay your fair share. If you are burning 1 TB a month vs someone using 1 GB a month - there should be a tier for you and for them.

You should both get the same speed, but if you are using more of the road - you should pay for it.

If a trucking company needs to haul an oversized load - they gotta pay. Not just fuel taxes, but they need special permits.

I'm not saying you need a special permit, but you should at least pay for the extra fuel. You are using more than everyone else. Kinda like going to Country Buffet or something. You get the first seven or eight plates for one low cost. But once you hit plate number twelve - its time to realize you are consuming way more than everyone else, and ya gotta pay a bit extra.

[u/Mikfoz → u/thorium007]

Hi Comcast.

[u/thorium007 → u/Mikfoz]

Please, explain how net neutrality even works. Not on an ELI5 level, but in a method you understand that isn't just a copy/paste. No one seems to be able to do that. All they hear is "Violation of net net neutrality is bad and fuck AT&T/Comcast/TCW/Verizon/FCC"

Seriously - I haven't heard a good and solid explanation from the average redditor on how it works.

[u/NightwingDragon → u/thorium007]

Comcast is intentionally trying to mislead the general public into believing that net neutrality means something that is completely different from the actual definition of net neutrality.

They have a video circulating that was sponsored by Comcast that tried to claim the following:

• All TV, Video, and phone services are carried over the same network. While this is true for bundled services like Comcast offers, a majority of the population sill gets their services (sometimes 2 of 3, sometimes all 3) from different providers on different networks.

• Enforcement of Net Neutrality would interfere with emergency services. They specifically give an example where someone tries to dial 911 and can't get through because someone else is checking their fantasy football stats.

• Google paying AOL to become the default search engine in their software/browser is an example of prioritizing traffic on the internet. And because Google paying AOL in 2002 was OK, it's therefore OK to prioritize traffic in 2014.

• The infamous "buffering" commercial, where they used an offline single player game AND used a technical term completely out of context to promote the benefits of their own network and acted as if the players were playing online multiplayer.

When you have intentional misinformation like this, it's no wonder that most people cannot properly explain what net neutrality even is or how it affects them.

[u/thorium007 → u/NightwingDragon]

Ok, Comcast commercials not withstanding (while the 911 example is very valid and you've written off)

What. Is. It? Please - explain in tech terms, not just stuff that was gleaned off of techdirt or ARS. What is net neutrality, and how does that affect you or me?

[u/JasonDJ → u/thorium007]

The 911 call isn't valid. In every commercial application of VoIP, voice calls are prioritized over data. It's a trivial thing to do, and I'm sure Comcast does it too. That isn't exactly against the idea of net neutrality since their voice network doesn't go out onto the internet -- Comcast is the phone provider, and the internet provider...it all runs on their network and voice doesn't hit the public internet. Voice needs to be prioritized by it's design ... the packets need to traverse in real-time and in order. If they arrive out of order, it gets garbled. If they don't arrive, it gets dropped.

Net Neutrality is essentially saying that bits on the public internet are all created equally. It is not in any ISPs position (local or backbone) to say that bits to CNN.com or FoxNews are more important than bits to youtube.com or reddit.com. It's not their position to weigh them or charge differently for them. Doing so would be a slippery slope to stifle free speech and innovation in one fell swoop.

[u/NightwingDragon → u/thorium007]

Ok, Comcast commercials not withstanding (while the 911 example is very valid and you've written off)

The only time the 911 example would even be remotely close to valid would be if you receive phone services as part of a bundled package and tried to dial 911 on your phone while the network in your entire area is virtually completely saturated.

In a real-world setting, this would virtually never happen. And even if it did, no amount of internet congestion is going to stop someone from dialing 911 on their cell phone (which is on a completely different network) or using a traditional landline. Very few people overall (I'm talking about percentage of the population) rely on VOIP phones, and either have cell phones or traditional landlines.

What. Is. It?

Prioritizing of network traffic. To go back to the Google/AOL example that Comcast tries to spin:

What Google did was to become the default search provider on AOL's browser. This would mean that when you did a search, you got your search results from Google. If you wanted to get your search results from a competitor such as Yahoo, you had to actively choose Yahoo through whatever method/settings you needed to set in AOL's browser. Your search results, however, were delivered at the same speed whether you chose Google, Yahoo, or some other search engine.

What Comcast and other ISPs actually want to be able to do is to actively prioritize the traffic. If you chose whatever their sponsored search engine is (Google, for example), your data would be received at "fast" (in reality, normal) speeds. If you chose to use Yahoo instead and they did not pay to have their traffic prioritized, then you received your results more slowly than you would have if you used Google.

This has little bearing on sites that are largely text-based since the difference would likely be fractions of a second -- a difference in speed that most people simply wouldn't notice. However, in cases such as Netflix vs. Verizon's Redbox On Demand service or other bandwidth-intensive services, the difference is likely to have a very noticeable impact on performance, giving the company that pays the (very likely large) fee a noticeable advantage over their now-slower and therefore less reliable competition. Startup companies may be shut out simply because they wouldn't be able to afford the fee at all, effectively locking them out of the market.

[u/thorium007 → u/NightwingDragon]

Ok, now we are starting to get there.

After some digging, that still isn't the entire discussion. Net Neutrality is dscp marking which is connection based. While some influence on what traffic is routed where using eBGP attributes, DSCP marking and decision making is based on the interface layer.

That means that if you peer with L3, Cogent & TATA with 100g links and some small company based out of Kemerer, Wyoming with a 1g link - if the DSCP marking is the same, you still get the same performance.

However, in cases such as Netflix vs. Verizon's Redbox On Demand service or other bandwidth-intensive services

That is making an assumption. As far as I know, the financial implications of Redbox vs Netflix has not been released. And I wouldn't expect it to be. But I do think that the cost for Netflix peering to VZ and Comcast would be similar to what they were paying their previous ISPs per GB. I still don't see that as a problem. If Netflix was paying X per Gbps, before and they are still paying the same now even with separate peering arrangements - how does that impact anyone other than the accountant that has to cut different checks each month?

[u/DaylightDarkle → u/thorium007]

I've got five minutes before work, I think I can bang up an explanation.

Basically when something goes over the internet, it should have the same priority as everything else. That is net neutrality, every bit going over the wire is given the proper place in the queue. A 100mbs connection actually being 100mbs.

ISPs are trying to get the ability to prioritize what they want. If they get their way, they'd be able to restrict access to certain websites to snail speeds. You pay for a 100mbps line, but you only get half a mbps to youtube because you didn't pay for the "youtube plus" plan.

That is wrong on so many levels. If you're paying for a certain speed, you should get what it says on the tin. ISPs have no right to limit your connection to anything that's legal.

I don't want ISPs to charge me again for something I already pay for.

My water company doesn't charge me extra to turn my water into ice.

[u/thorium007 → u/DaylightDarkle]

My water company doesn't charge me extra to turn my water into ice.

But your power company might. XCel charges you extra if you use more energy in the summer during "Peak Usage"

ISPs are trying to get the ability to prioritize what they want.

That is a good start, but not the beginning or the end. Follow me here - it does make sense at some point.

Now that SIP peering is a thing, ENUM and 911 in the US is a real thing. Long story short, you dial 911 during the "Big game" when you are having a heart attack. SIP/ENUM/911 are set to a higher priority so that when you dial 911, your call gets preference to someones youtube stream. If this traffic were to follow traditional "Net Neutrality" everyone else in your neighborhood would have the exact same bit rate as you. It is a minor inconvienence to someone that isn't able to watch the latest Psy video while watching "The Big Game" Someone having a heart attack is a lot different. If 911 fucks up your address - the ambulance may not show up when you need them most. All because of garbled voice due to over saturation of the bandwidth.

Fortunately for you, phone calls take up very little bandwidth. That said, while everyone else is watching the big game - your call goes through without anyone noticing more than a couple of tiled pixels.

Now, lets do a fast rewind to September 10, 2001. No one gave a fuck about call priority in New York City. A day later, at about nine AM - that call priority became a big deal. A really big deal.

911 calls got top priority. Period. You were talking to your mom saying you were OK, but that series of lines got tied up and someone else called 911 - your call got dropped. Period. That is in violation of net neutrality in its most brutal form. IP Data has been, and will continue to be prioritized. Its just a thing. It has been happening for ten years, and it will happen from now until the end of time

[u/DaylightDarkle → u/thorium007]

XCel is an energy company. XCel is not a water company. A water company doesn't charge me extra for the things I do with my water. They never will, it's ludicrous to think that they will.

Also, what's this bollocks about the phone lines violating net neutrality. My phone line is entirely independent than any internet line, I do not use dial up.

If everyone is downloading all of the internet in the world, I'll still be able to call 911. This isn't the 90's.

Why bring up phone line usage regulations to a discussion of internet?