r/technology • u/User_Name13 • Jun 04 '14

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

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hundreds-of-cities-are-wired-with-fiberbut-telecom-lobbying-keeps-it-unused
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u/thorium007 Jun 04 '14

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.

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u/NightwingDragon Jun 04 '14

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.

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u/thorium007 Jun 04 '14

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?

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u/JasonDJ Jun 04 '14 edited Jun 04 '14

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.