FCC Chief: Yes, Let’s Reclassify the Internet and Save Net Neutrality
It’s game time for net neutrality. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler is proposing new rules to protect the internet, recommending that telecom companies be treated like a public utility and thus overseen by the government. This is a blow to big cable and the push to create a tiered system of internet delivery.
Yay for net neutrality! His proposal also applies net neutrality to mobile, and will prohibit stuff like data throttling.
Breadcrumb so I can read the whole revised strategic plan when I get home!
yesssssssss!
So this means internet streaming will become spotty again?
No. The opposite!
+Michael Beck help me with this. In order for a company like Netflix to stream video without it being spotty is by getting their servers as close to the end user as possible. Historically they used 3rd party Content Delivery Networks that had build servers in various cities who then had relationships with ISPs. More recently Netflix worked out deals (either paid or not) with ISPs to house their servers in the ISP facilities so to avoid streaming issues. If what I read is correct and both ISPs AND CDNs will now fall under Title II classification, then no more Netflix servers allowed in either place. Which means Netflix would have to serve their content from their server to other servers until it reaches the final customer. With all those data hops, issues arise and video becomes spotty. So what do I have wrong?
What you have wrong is that it is not all about Netflix in the first place!
true…but as more and more people start streaming video over the net versus cable/satellite, it bears the same question
It is competition. if the provides can not provide adequate service we will go elsewhere. The big service providers are also trying to kill community ISP's which are providing a better service than they are at a lower price, with more reliability around the country. They want no competition. Net neutrality is all about freedom and competition. Very American I must say!
+Michael Beck I am all for community ISP as long as it pays for itself and isn't government subsidized.
Good then we agree on that. I wish I had that as an option. All I have is Comcast and Att. Not a choice!
+Bearman Cartoons if the interconnect agreements with ISP's were required then ALL ISP's would require interconnect agreements. That wasn't the case, they only have to do it with Verizon and Comcast… because their networks were shit or they were throttling it, etc. With being reclassified as a utility a company cannot legally claim to be "broadband" or high speed or whatever terminology they want to use unless they can deliver a minimum speed (I believe 25mbps). It should also allow for restructuring and more competition (hopefully, like when we broke up Ma Bell and forced them to lease lines to other providers, creating competition where there wasn't any).
Amazing development.
Also, pretty sure "moving nearer" (via whatever means) is not traffic discrimination so they would still be aloud. Ditto for Googles edge-servers. The problem is not "being faster" the problem is slowing other people down in order to do so.
I just found out that they will NOT be considered a utility and therefor not have to share their lines like the telcos did. Bummer… guess we're still locked into the one shitty provider we have.
+Paul Spoerry I honestly am not buying that Comcast or Verizon was throttling. Netflix tried to become it's own CDN as they didn't want to pay the CDN's located in the different cities. So they approached the ISPs and said, let us put our servers in your facilities to cut out the middle man. You should do it for free because it is good for your customers who are streaming our stuff. Comcast says "sure we can do it but you need to pay us" because what you are downloading to our servers is way greater than anything our customers are uploading to yours. I truly believe that Neflix pulled their servers from 3rd party CDNs in order to make it seem like Comcast/Verizon were throttling data and thus the picture being sent over the regular internet was spotty.
Now based on the utility thing, I wonder if they don't have to share the lines but does anyone have access to the poles. Right now Google is slow to roll out because I heard they don't have access to the poles since they aren't considered a utility. At the very least this could speed up deployment. Plus it may also keep the Googles and other new ISPs from just focusing on the rich areas of town.
+Bearman Cartoons FiOS customers could use a VPN and see their Netflix speeds increase. Before VPN: 375Kbps. After VPN: 3000Kbps
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/186576-verizon-caught-throttling-netflix-traffic-even-after-its-pays-for-more-bandwidth
My understanding is that the FCC ruling will allow for municipal broadband, which I think is what Google has been doing with rolling out it's own fiber.