Quote:
Originally Posted by grizy
You have a very very narrow definition of throttling and I am okay with that.
The logical conclusion, in the spirit of net neutrality, is to force ISPs to invest in infrastructure as part of their franchise agreements and licenses. To me, the spirit of "net neutrality" is ISPs should not be allowed to decide what traffic to allow on their networks. They should be required to deliver promised "virtually lag-free" streaming service. And they should do so without using their own customers as hostages trying to extract ransoms from content providers.
Just enforcing current agreements would go a very long way. Verizon for instance took government (federal, state, and local) money promising to build its FiOS network out. They have essentially stopped building.
I agree I am conflating some issues here. Net neutrality, peering agreements, failure to deliver on promised network are all symptoms of non-competitive nature of the broadband market allowing Verizon/Comcast to put the squeeze on both the consumers and content providers.
The bolded is a big issue for me. I think 20 Meg service or w/e actually should primarily mean 20 meg service, not 20 meg or "best efforts"
I think id also support public rollout of broadband infrastructure, particularly in underserved areas, perhaps with no one owning the last mile and different providers competing to service the infrastructure, but I have to think it through deeper to make sure its not going to hinder future network investment. Im glad to see Google Fiber poking its nose into more places.
My biggest issue with net neutrality is that Im not convinced that its the right approach to addressing the fundamental issue that broadband markets and the video ecosystem are oligopolistic/monopolistic. I think it is overbroad regulation in some respects, but in other respects fails to touch address anti-competitive, anti-consumer aspects of the business. Id rather take a broader approach to making the industry more competitive so that things like discriminatory throttling would be anathema to a company that tried it.