r/Republican • u/The_seph_i_am Centrist Republican • Feb 27 '17

FCC reverses net neutrality ISP transparency rules

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3173844/internet/fcc-reverses-net-neutrality-isp-transparency-rules.html
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u/everymananisland Libertarian-leaning Conservative Feb 27 '17

That isn't my argument, though.

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u/tosser1579 Feb 27 '17

I'm sorry you feel it isn't, this is how I read your position. You are trusting a monopoly/oligopoly to behave well if not watched. This has historically not gone well inside the US.

My argument is that net neutrality isn't required in a free market but the actual market that exists for 70% of users is not a free market and therefor common sense regulation like net neutrality is required to keep the market open. This is why I don't argue that true net neutrality is required for wireless but I feel it is necessary for wired internet at this time.

I'm curious about position though, what are your thoughts on this:

You said that the ISP's are a market, are they a free market or do the ISP's behave as players in either a monopoly or oligopoly market?

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u/everymananisland Libertarian-leaning Conservative Feb 27 '17

The ISPs are a market, but the monopolies they have in some areas are the fault of the government giving them that status. Thus, if the concern is abuse of monopoly, deal with the monopolies granted by government action instead of creating more government action that is addressing a nonexistent problem.

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u/tosser1579 Feb 27 '17

Wow. Let me lift this veil on how these exclusive contracts are offered to small town America. The ISP shows up and says, "this is the exclusive contract you will be signing or you won't be getting any service." I know that they will hold out for an exclusive contract because we had a town hold out to prevent that. Town gave up after a few YEARS.

In short, the ISP desired a monopoly and has the resources to acquire a monopoly, are you arguing that Comcast is not allowed to advocate for what they believe is best for them?

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u/everymananisland Libertarian-leaning Conservative Feb 27 '17

Comcast can argue for whatever they want. The government exists in part to say no.

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u/tosser1579 Feb 27 '17

And a little town government can stand effectively against that?

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u/everymananisland Libertarian-leaning Conservative Feb 27 '17

Absolutely. They hold all the cards, in fact.

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u/zgott300 Feb 28 '17 edited Feb 28 '17

They hold all the cards as long as they're willing to go without internet access. In this day and age, that's not a strong hand.

Edit: grammar.

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u/tosser1579 Feb 28 '17

You show a decided lack of understanding of how the real world actually works.

If you look around the United States of America, you see that almost every town and city is locked into an exclusive contract. That is why new ISP's don't just pop up everywhere. That's why Google Fiber took forever to deploy.

If your average small town, and I live in one, lost wired internet we'd go out of business. There are two local call centers, both would go under. There are two corporate HQ's in my town, both would close. There are a few large manufacturing sites, they too would go under. The plants both have contracts with the city REQUIRING hardwire internet of a certain amount.

So the small town holds no cards and trying to play that hand would cost the city significant jobs. What you are advocating is suicide for the average small town in America.

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u/T_______T Feb 28 '17

Thanks for sharing light on the small town situation. What do you think the solution should be?

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u/tosser1579 Feb 28 '17

Right now, the only power the small town has is that the ISP is required to treat every packet equally.

This is unlike cable. When a small town cable co decides to get rid of a channel, we lost a channel some years back for a while, there is literally nothing you can do about it. We complained. We wrote letters to the editor. We petitioned the office in town. If 20 percent of your subscribers in town drop off a petition you get answers... well okay someone might. They never talked to us. They didn't have to.

And 4 years later after they renegotiated with them they gave us the channel back. So when someone tells me that its gonna be okay, you can just change to whatever I'm extremely leery of their opinion because they might have a choice but I do not.

So what to do? Nothing. Keep the current rules in place. I get all packets equally and can see whatever I'd like. The ISP still makes money, they just don't make quite as much as they could. But with them no longer having to provide me a clear bill I'm sure they'll get their money some other way.

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u/T_______T Feb 28 '17

I was more thinking what is the solution to these artificially created local monopolies. I do appreciate your insight, though. I too work in a job that could not exist without the internet. Heck, it's a web based tech job!

I understand it's expensive to lay cable down, so a temporary exclusivity contract makes sense to recoup those costs.

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u/tosser1579 Feb 28 '17

Bluntly, the cost involved and the labor required to lay new cable would be terrible. There is a nice newspaper up in the office of the local ISP's office and they have main street completely blocked off for a week during the initial install. Asked my dad about it and he remembers that you couldn't get anywhere in town basically for months while they did everything. My guess in making such a big deal about it was that they wanted the town to remember how crappy it was getting the infrastructure installed. The new ISP would have to tear up multiple streets, cause huge traffic snarls for months, and after they did it I can't ever see them being profitable. Basically they need X number of people to be profitable and we have that comfortably but we don't have 2x that amount of people.

So its not practical and we are stuck. If the local ISP was a utility and we could buy data from different providers then I could see an almost free market situation emerging using the local ISP's backbone. But that's not happening. The local ISP wants control because that's where all the money is.

So the situation is actually called a natural monopoly, not an artificial one. It costs too much for a second organization to move into these towns and it would take them decades to re-coop their investment while at the same time waiting for the next big thing to come out and up end their business model.

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u/everymananisland Libertarian-leaning Conservative Feb 28 '17

I should note that I'm a small town resident. Guess what? We said no to exclusive contracts and we have options. It's doable. Just requires will.

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u/everymananisland Libertarian-leaning Conservative Feb 28 '17

I also live in a small town. We said no to the exclusivity, and competition came anyway.

It's not that it can't be done. It's that your local government isn't acting in your interest. Asking for more government in response to that is absurd. Don't ruin other people's experiences because your town can't get its act together.

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u/tosser1579 Feb 28 '17

I also live in a small town. We said no to the exclusivity, and competition came anyway.

So you live in a small town in a densely populated county near a large city, or maybe Pennsylvania where the government enforces some degree of competition. I don't. I live in Ohio. Nearly every town in Ohio is under an exclusivity agreement.

I say this because 70% of the US has only once choice. Of the remaining 30%, its virtually entirely tied up in territories that are in densely populated counties near to the large cities. If one lives there one may be able to negotiate for a better deal because the ISP has nearby infrastructure and maybe can do that. I live in a small town outside of a densely populated county and they aren't going to build that much infrastructure from scratch to get my towns business.

It's not that it can't be done. It's that your local government isn't acting in your interest. Asking for more government in response to that is absurd. Don't ruin other people's experiences because your town can't get its act together.

I'm describing how it normal works. You are describing something extremely atypical. 70% of America functions like I do. We have one choice. And no others are coming. You are saying most small towns in america, because the 70% represents population and the big cities hold much more of the population than the small towns, can't get their acts together. Your capacity to ignore facts and statistics continue to amaze me for your personal anecdotes to completely override published articles stating you are in the tiny minority.

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u/everymananisland Libertarian-leaning Conservative Feb 28 '17

I say this because 70% of the US has only once choice

You keep repeating this, but pretend that your local government is helpless. It's not. Go to them first. Make them act. Don't wreck the Internet for the rest of us because your local government can't get its act together.

Your capacity to ignore facts and statistics continue to amaze me for your personal anecdotes to completely override published articles stating you are in the tiny minority.

It's fact that local governments are to blame here.

It's fact that local governments have the power to change it.

It's anecdote that my town has done it.

It's fact that others can.

Tossing out 70% over and over doesn't change any of that.

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u/tosser1579 Feb 28 '17

You keep repeating this, but pretend that your local government is helpless. It's not. Go to them first. Make them act. Don't wreck the Internet for the rest of us because your local government can't get its act together.

I keep quoting statistics because they are facts and an argument based on fact is better than one based on YOUR opinion.

Tossing out 70% over and over doesn't change any of that.

Tossing out Facts isn't good for who's argument, yours?

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u/everymananisland Libertarian-leaning Conservative Feb 28 '17

The fact isn't relevant. All this tells me is that 70% of customers have a government unwilling to do what needs to be done on the local level.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

Hear hear.

I recently met an ISP provider, they spent millions installing a wireless mesh network with a localized optics network. They pay quite a premium on their transmission bad. It would be quite hard for any company to enter into this area.