quote:

Originally posted by 46and2:
There is no actual free market when it comes to broadband access in much of the US, and this problem is getting worse, not better, and shows no signs of changing anytime soon.

Wrong. The FCCs report says that in 2015, 95% of census blocks had two fixed providers with 3 Mbps service or better, and 90% have two or more providers with 10Mbps. In 2016, those numbers were up to 100% and 96%, respectively.

This is the most competitive segment of our economy, and it is improving dramatically year in year.

Let me say that again, 96% of the country have competition from providers with performance sufficient to provide two simultaneous high def video streams.

2016 report
2015 report

Figure 4 on page 6 on both reports.

quote:

Originally posted by 46and2:
5 megabits, in 2017, is an absurd joke, as is thinking Netflix is the standard we aspire to.

And what if it is a house with a family of four or five all streaming video or surfing the Internet. Is 5 or 10 megabytes sufficient?

quote:

Originally posted by Graniteguy:
Nothing the government gets involved in is ever beneficial to you or I.

That's all I need to know.

Never is a BIG word, may I suggest you research the Rural Electrification Act. MG

quote:

Originally posted by midwest guy:

quote:

Originally posted by Graniteguy:
Nothing the government gets involved in is ever beneficial to you or I.

That's all I need to know.

Never is a BIG word, may I suggest you research the Rural Electrification Act. MG

Ganiteguy's statement was definitely hyperbolic, but I'd highly recommend Amnity Shlaes' book The Forgotten Man to you. Most of the rural electrification was just the government stepping in and taking credit for things that were happening anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by sig2392:
Net neutrality is like the TSA, all talk no substance.

There are only a few major players and they are all cutting deals for service.

Netflix is 40% +/- of all traffic, it has even displaced porn as the major traffic hog.

Netflix pays the carriers like Verizon and Comcast to prioritize their traffic.

Some traffic is more neutral than others

I would rather have business decide who is more neutral than others rather than government.

China controls their internet and its not such a good thing.


The republican will not be in power for ever.

I would not want to see the government deciding what traffic is neutral and what needs to be censored for the good of the children.

I'm not 100% sure about Verizon, but Netflix pays Comcast for "priority service" because Comcast demanded it in the past. Netflix did not respond to the demand so Comcast down-throttled Netflix access speeds. After several months of Comcast continuing to lower traffic speeds to Netflix, Netflix finally capitulated and signed a contract, and were then returned to their original speeds, not priority, just strong-armed into paying millions more for what they already had. Net Neutrality put an end to this sort of black mail.

Another thing large ISP's do is prioritize SpeedTest.net (a long time standard in tasting bandwidth speeds) to make it look like you are getting the service you paid for. Netflix actually started their own speedtest site to combat this (fast.com) that is tied to their domain, so it cannot be prioritized by ISPs without ALSO prioritizing all of Netflix's streaming services. If you are curious, go ahead and check your speeds on SpeedTest.net and Fast.com, I'd be interested to hear if anyone here finds discrepancies.

Edit: As an example, I show 48 Mbps on Speedtest, but only 16 mbps on Fast, meaning my ISP is artificially throttling access to Netflix. Net Neutrality is intended to address this, although nothing is perfect. However if it is repealed, not only will this trend continue to worsen, you will be forced to pay additional to bring your service speeds up to what you ALREADY PAY FOR for everything else.

quote:

Originally posted by Ianfiniti:
I'm not 100% sure about Verizon, but Netflix pays Comcast for "priority service" because Comcast demanded it in the past. Netflix did not respond to the demand so Comcast down-throttled Netflix access speeds. After several months of Comcast continuing to lower traffic speeds to Netflix, Netflix finally capitulated and signed a contract, and were then returned to their original speeds, not priority, just strong-armed into paying millions more for what they already had. Net Neutrality put an end to this sort of black mail.

Another thing large ISP's do is prioritize SpeedTest.net (a long time standard in tasting bandwidth speeds) to make it look like you are getting the service you paid for. Netflix actually started their own speedtest site to combat this (fast.com) that is tied to their domain, so it cannot be prioritized by ISPs without ALSO prioritizing all of Netflix's streaming services. If you are curious, go ahead and check your speeds on SpeedTest.net and Fast.com, I'd be interested to hear if anyone here finds discrepancies.

Roger that and don't forget YouTube.
Sometimes when I have buffering issues I connect through a vpn (vprvpn) so my ISP (ATT) does not know and the buffering goes away.
I haven't had much of a problem with Netflix but I don't watch much via my computer.
I have had some differences with fast.com and other speed tests in the past.
YMMV

I just checked both and Speedtest gave me 62Mbps and fast.com was 29!

quote:

Originally posted by Dusty78:
I just checked both and Speedtest gave me 62Mbps and fast.com was 29!

Yeah, they prioritize the tests above all else to give the appearance of great. But almost never will you actually realize such numbers in real life use. Usually a mere fraction.

Just wait until the cocksmokers start pricing Broadband access like Cable TV packages.

A family can easily chew through a terabyte of data in a month, with 3-5+ devices going at once. And a paltry 5 megabits, 10 even, is year 2000 thinking. Wait until 4K content gets popular.

Again, NN legislation (past, current, or future) will no doubt be imperfect, but letting giant (effective) monopolies control it is an even worse idea.

And those reports linked above are hogwash, as anyone who travels or has lived around or has friends and clients spread around the country can tell you. In just one neighborhood I know it technically has/had DSL (a whopping 2 megabits on a good day), but the physical infrastructure has been at full capacity for 7years now and they aren't allowing any new accounts, so no one new gets access until someone else drops off, and this is not unique, with no known plans to upgrade the infrastructure anytime soon.

Free Markets are generally great, but they absolutely, unequivocally, do NOT solve all problems by themselves, or in a timely fashion, or anything close to the theoretical, and the ISP game is far more monopolistic than some would have you believe, in practice.

And most count things like Satellite, which might let you stream a movie here and there, but the lag make it impossible to play online games, so yes, it's broadband, sort of.

And so on. These sorts of issues exist all over the place.

Comcast Business High-Speed Internet, here. Supposed to have 50/10. Speediest (app) showing 59 down. Fast showing 89. Fascinating.

As for successful government projects, the Colorado-Big Thompson Project is pretty sweet, as is the Hoover Dam and its tunnel that heads toward LA, or the Eisenhower Tunnel, and so on. Broadband Access, in 2017 and beyond, is and will be as important as Water and Power. Try finding a job in most places without access. The needs increase daily. And, again, if there was actual, equivalent, widespread competition it would be different...

...but there's not.

quote:

Originally posted by 46and2:
As for successful government projects, the Colorado-Big Thompson Project is pretty sweet, as is the Hoover Dam and its tunnel that heads toward LA, or the Eisenhower Tunnel, and so on. Broadband Access, in 2017 and beyond, is and will be as important as Water and Power. Try finding a job in most places without access. The needs increase daily. And, again, if there was actual, equivalent, widespread competition it would be different...

...but there's not.

But but but according to people on here we all have oodles of viable options

Back to the subject of choice: In my zip code (a suburb of San Francisco - 18 miles as the crow flies) there is any service provider you want - as long as it's Comcast. That's it.

quote:

Originally posted by synthplayer:
Back to the subject of choice: In my zip code (a suburb of San Francisco - 18 miles as the crow flies) there is any service provider you want - as long as it's Comcast. That's it.

Lucky you. I have no less than a dozen friends who would consider selling their first born kid to even have Comcast as an option. Imagine that shit. Wishing you had Comcast...

quote:

Originally posted by 46and2:
Lucky you. I have no less than a dozen friends who would consider selling their first born kid to even have Comcast as an option. Imagine that shit. Wishing you had Comcast...

Thing is, I, so far (15 years) have only been impressed by Comcast.

Net neutrality masks the real issue of local government giving major ISP's infrastructural monopolies. That is the real problem and unfortunately consumers will need to suffer a little to get that changed. That is of course only if your ISP breaks with previous methods of not giving a damn what you access like they have always done.

quote:

Originally posted by Dusty78:
My neighborhood (28208) has only one. And my building doesn’t allow sat dishes. If you actually type my address into Fios, AT&T, etc...searching for high speed broadband they all return not available in your area. Sure there are slow services under 10mbps speeds but that’s like using a rotary phone these days. All these providers are available in theory only. So what’s the difference if the government dictates neutrality or Spectrum (TWC) which is my only ISP option? You are just trading one shitty untrustworthy group of dickbags for another. The real difference is that in 4 years you can get a new government...try removing Spectrum’s strangle hold in that same amount of time. I already pay $100 a month for just internet...I only stream, no cable. I bet my package will run $200 after the kill NN the same as it would if I just bought their shitty cable.

You have completely bought into the idea that NN is about keeping your ISP from charging YOU, personally, more per month. That is not what it would do.

Since you refuse to look into the regulations, which have been linked in this thread, that show you what NN would really do, I feel that nothing I can say will help. You simply have bought into the fear and uncertainty that the left sold the public about these regulations.

How about addressing the idea of the internet being reclassified as a Title II utility? How can you possibly be okay with this? You actually fear your bill going up, but how about when the internet is a Title II utility. Long distance phone service was taxed 3% from 1898 until 2006 to pay for the Spanish-American war. Yet you believe that NN will give the government the power to keep your internet service fast and less expensive. Riiiigggghhht.

Oh, and the idea that we can just change our government every four years is a joke. How's that repeal of the ACA going?

 
I just wonder how the Internet survived prior to 2015-02-26? I am fully in favor of not having the government meddle with it.
 

If you are OK with the government allocating services and setting prices, you should favor Net Nuetrality. The next stop on this train is the government determining appropriate content.

Net Neutrality is nothing more than government control.

The internet has rapidly grown with network providers providing capital for ever expanding networks and capacity. All without government oversight. I favor keeping it that way.

quote:

Originally posted by Dtech:
It is one of the very few things I agreed with during Obama's administration. I don't see an upside either to not having complete freedom of Internet content regardless of who your conduit is to get on the Net. This is one of those things we may need to vigorously and vocally bring to the current administration's and our representatives' attention. I see what the current FCC stooge proposing as essentially allowing the service providers to turn the Internet into a cable TV equivalent of "what and how many channels/websites are you willing to pay for" service providers. Thanks, but no thanks. They need to leave net neutrality alone!

Same. If the shit was free fine Mr. ISP. If I am paying you a monthly service, then fuck off With my bits.