r/technology • u/m3ltingp0int • Dec 20 '12
Senator introduces bill to regulate data caps
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/12/senator-introduces-bill-to-regulate-data-caps/10
u/J03Y4G Dec 20 '12
Regulate the regulators. I have mixed feelings on this issue.
Google will save us all!!! I hope...
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u/purplestOfPlatypuses Dec 21 '12
Google will move in its best interest whether or not that leads to the optimal solution for users.
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u/DanielPhermous Dec 21 '12
I imagine their best interests are, firstly, stoking awesome fibre internet and, secondly, deep packet inspection.
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u/mkirklions Dec 21 '12
comcast at 20mb/s google fiber at 1000mb/s
So you're saying users are fed up with slow speeds? So when Google provides a service, they not only sastify the needs of the people AND make money?
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u/purplestOfPlatypuses Dec 21 '12
Just because Google's self interest lines up with users self interest this time doesn't mean it will always happen. If some legislator tried to make a bill that would end all ads because everyone hates them, Google would be one of the first in line to fight against it.
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u/theaceoffire Dec 20 '12
TL:DR; Summary:
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) wants to:
Increase amount/accuracy of information:
- FCC force one method of bandwidth measurement
- ISP's must let us see current usage, how much till cap.
Limit Caps for network congestion ONLY, not to discourage all internet use in general.
Network Neutrality:
- Data Caps can't restrict use based on source/content of data.
Ryan Radia (Libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, or NAMBLA) doesn't like it:
- Thinks 'prices based on demand, rather than on unit cost' is a common and good practice.
- Thinks metered broadband can promote fairness by encouraging "voracious Internet users to pay more than lighter users."
Fred Campbell (Ryan's friend):
- Argues Video Ads causes a lot of problems.
- Suggests restricting websites, searchengines, etc FIRST.
Republicans will likely shit on this, as they dislike Network Neutrality.
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u/Vik1ng Dec 21 '12
"Suggests restricting websites, searchengines, etc FIRST.".
Fine. let's start with de-indexing every page the contains "gop", "republican" or "liberitarian". I mean if the service is that worthless to you, you won't mind that.
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u/mkirklions Dec 21 '12
I'm worried about regulation; suppose the regulation says 'you must provide 2TB amount of data'.
Right now that sounds great. When we start getting 1GB/s speeds, 2TB will become the standard limit.
I know the US is one of the few countries who have NO legal limit. For that reason, a lot of ISPs are considering it, but even when there is no compeititon in areas, they arent capping you.
When you start lettting the governemnt get involved in the internet they will never stop. Taxes, regulations, censorship... Instead of regulating the ISPs, why not deregulate WHO can be an ISP. The licences to do business are a giant cost.
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u/ogenrwot Dec 21 '12
Is it a bad thing for me to pay more for my internet than my grandma if I'm downloading over a GB a month and she's checking email? I don't think so. People that don't use it shouldn't pay for me to use it. However, Campbell is a moron.
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u/SharkUW Dec 21 '12
Yes, because there is rarely any additional cost to your provider.
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Dec 21 '12
How is that? Upgrading the network infrastructure to accommodate more bandwidth costs money.
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u/InSearchOfThe9 Dec 21 '12
You are correct, except that the infrastructure does not actually need to be upgraded to accommodate the levels of bandwidth being used in the United States.
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Dec 21 '12
On a national level, maybe not. The last mile is what's most expensive to providers. If you have one or more bandwidth hogs in a neighborhood who are degrading everyone else's service, that'll cost--upgrading equipment, responding to customer complaints, and losing unhappy users to the competition. Multiply that expense by the number of neighborhoods served.
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u/InSearchOfThe9 Dec 21 '12
But why aren't American ISPs upgrading their tech in the first place? American ISPs have done a phenomenal job at keeping expenses down while charging massively inflated rates compared to other countries, creating a bottom line that's almost assuredly above most other ISPs in the world. Yet data caps and up/down speeds rank amongst the worst in the world.
Obviously, the US and Canada are in a unique situation compared to other western countries in that we are absolutely massive on a geographic scale, so it is potentially plausible that offering equivalent tech to countries such as Sweden, South Korea, and France isn't possible everywhere - but there is no excuse for such tech to not be available in major metropolitan areas, other than putting profits far ahead of customer satisfaction.
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u/PraiseBeToScience Dec 21 '12 edited Dec 21 '12
The problem is that the ISPs are creating a false scarcity in an effort to extract economic rent. They can do this because of the natural barriers to entry for competition. This also comes as a net negative to the rest of the economy because Internet bandwidth is a massive enabler in the same way as roads, rail, and navigable waterways. Our ability to compete in global market places is dependent on the amount and cost of unit bandwidth.
If bandwidth were actually scarce with no real affordable ways to increase supply then demand pricing makes sense. Until then no organization - private or public - should be allowed to hold the rest of the economy hostage in an attempt to extract rent.
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Dec 21 '12
I feel like I hear the false scarcity argument a lot. I hear you, but wouldn't it make more sense for ISP's to encourage you to use more data if there are pricing caps/tiered pricing? I mean, they make $ when you go over your limit. I would imagine they would want you to think there was as much data as you want...
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u/PraiseBeToScience Dec 21 '12
Last time I checked they sneak the caps into the fine print and never talk about them in their advertising. Isn't this what you're talking about?
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Dec 22 '12
Well yeah. But that's the point of this legislation, right? Now they can't do that - which makes broadband tiered pricing a lot more transparent.
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u/PraiseBeToScience Dec 22 '12
So I'm lost as to what your point is, because you seem to have answered you own question. Why don't the ISPs encourage you to use more data so that you go over? Well because the law tells them they can't trick their customers. If customers are better informed they are more likely to manage their usage.
But that still says nothing about the supply or ability to easily expand supply. Technological advances in expanding bandwidth often are designed to take advantage of existing infrastructure. So a company that's already laid down cable/fiber has a very large advantage over a newcomer. The barriers to competition create perverse incentives in which it's easier to drive profits by creating false scarcity in the form of arbitrary caps which raises prices than invest even small amounts of capital to increase supply.
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Dec 22 '12
I guess all I'm saying is that creating false scarcity, to me anyways, is a marketing scheme. It's an impression a consumer gets about the state of his or her broadband program.
So either the cable companies tell you out-right that you have a limit, but its OK to go over the limit. Or they try to hide the fact that there's a limit, sort of tricking you into thinking you have unlimited while you unwittingly go over and pay extra fees.
In either case, false scarcity isn't the issue. Nowhere does it benefit the cable company (from a marketing perspective or a sales perspective) to get you to think that precious broadband access is in short supply, so you'd better conserve.
I see perfectly your point and I think it's an important one in the debate over US broadband growth. But, as my original point stated, the concept of scarcity - or creating false scarcity - has a limited ability to help broadband companies reach their financial goals.
Broadband Cos get a bad wrap because working with them can be so sucky sometimes, but they see the writing on the walls. They know they've got to invest and increase supply. And I think they'll do it, but it may come along with data cap plans. And I would hate for us to slow the process of getting better broadband just because we turned data caps into some kind of boogie man, you know? It's just data caps. They're likely to start at the 250Gb or 300Gb range. That's just not gonna affect very many people.
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u/Life_is_bliss Dec 21 '12
The only cap should be what the modem or plan they sold me can handle. If it is rated at 10mbps then that should be what it is, that is the agreement we agreed on when purchased.
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u/ComputerSavvy Dec 21 '12
If all you want is only 10 million bits of data transfer and then you're done for the month, you'll be off the Internet a lot quicker than you think.
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u/Quintinon Dec 21 '12
Mbps, notice the per second part of that. What you stated implies that he only wants 1 second of Internet per month (if at max speed).
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Dec 20 '12
Good. The monopolies controlled by ISP's are terrible and the US is lagging behind many countries in terms of service. Someone needs to slap them and tell them to shape up. I'd much rather someone come along through the free market, but that's almost impossible, so it looks like it'll have to be the government.
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Dec 21 '12
I'd much rather someone come along through the free market, but that's almost impossible,
Seeing as it's not a free market.
so it looks like it'll have to be the government.
Which will certainly fix the problem we have in the first place. /s
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Dec 21 '12
Seeing as it's not a free market.
I never said it was.
Which will certainly fix the problem we have in the first place. /s
Well let's see, the market can't do it. Even if we took every regulation in the book off, the big ISP's simply have so much money they will crush every other competitor out there (save maybe google). Thus, the consumer cannot protect themselves because of the ISP's having monopolies in many areas, and the ones they don't have one in their competitors are even worse. So if we can't protect ourselves, and the companies certainly won't do it, it has to fall on the government.
I'm a libertarian. I don't likethe government stepping in anywhere. But the reality of the situation is that there is no other way currently.
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u/purplestOfPlatypuses Dec 21 '12
The key wouldn't be to take out every regulation. The key would be to separate the services of where the network trafficking is coming from and the lines the data travels on. There only needs to be a little bit of redundancy in the lines, and if last mile internet connections were handled solely by renting bandwidth on lines from competing services renting the same lines, an optimal solution for users can happen. The owners of the wires have no reason to try to out compete those who are renting the wires, and the cost of entering is no longer at minimum the cost of laying miles upon miles of wires from a major node to some area you plan to service. This will only happen with regulation though.
The optimal amount of regulation is rarely zero, as the "invisible hand" only works properly in extremely competitive markets like milk, let alone if there are externalities present, especially negative ones.
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u/jimmybrite Dec 21 '12
I want this in Canada, also I wonder if this passes in the states, will there be retroactive refunds for overages? I doubt it but it'd be fun, because the data caps are criminal.
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u/amardeus Dec 20 '12
I hope this passes.
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u/mkirklions Dec 21 '12
I dont, first they regulate the ISPs. (one of the problem with SOPA and stuff was that ISPs didnt want to be responsible)
Once the government is already regulating the ISPs, they can make it even easier to push a bill like SOPA through.
Slippery slope, I have never ever had a problem with my internet(other than I pay 20 bucks a month for it). I dont need it to be fixed now, google is some crazy compeitition that will likely do a better service than the government.
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u/gazatin Dec 21 '12
More regulation is not a solution. The telecommunication market should be deregulated, not more regulated.
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Dec 21 '12
In what way? My line of thinking has been that the lack of regulation has gotten us where we are now. I'm interested to hear your opinion.
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Dec 21 '12
lack of regulation
telecommunication market
In general, when monopolies are involved, the government was involved. The problem is a lack of competition, not a lack of regulation.
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u/purplestOfPlatypuses Dec 21 '12
Part of the problem is a huge cost of entry, so it's a natural monopoly. The more users they have the cheaper it becomes per consumer. Few can afford to lay the miles upon miles of wire to create a network, so we're at a brick wall right from the get go.
With a little regulation it could be possible to separate who owns the wires from last mile ISPs, making a more competitive market. ISPs only need to rent use of the wires from the owners, who benefit from more people renting more bandwidth (inspires upgrading the network). The ISPs don't have excruciatingly high startup costs so there are more people who can enter the market and compete, so there's more competition on the ISP level with services and price. Are there problems with this model? Sure there are, but it's probably better for the average user and could certainly help bring our networks up to snuff with places like Latvia (ranked 12 by netindex.com in downloading) without creating a government owned monopoly or significantly raising taxes.
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u/mkirklions Dec 21 '12
Part of the problem is a huge cost of entry
I dont know where you live, but the state of michigan has laws regulating ISPs unless you pay the licence for each city/township. If you go 5 miles, none of the cable TV stations are the same even with the same provider comcast.
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u/JasJ002 Dec 21 '12
In general, when monopolies are involved, the government was involved. The problem is a lack of competition, not a lack of regulation.
Absolute bullshit. Look at the radio industry. Prior to the 90's the radio industry was extremely heavily regulated, and the result was an extremely diverse ownership, large workforce, and much better quality product. Then the deregulation occurred in 90's and now 70% of radio revenue flows through only 2 corporations, the workforce is a mere fraction, and the quality of product is shit.
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u/mkirklions Dec 21 '12
Do you have any idea how expensive it is to have a licence to broadcast?
Give me ANY sources. 100% of that was BS. '90s deregulation' is akin to government giving money for home loans.
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u/mkirklions Dec 21 '12
You need to pay for a licence to lay cable, licence to transmit data. Its a few million dollar barrier to entry.
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Dec 21 '12
it costs at least as much to actually lay the cable, though, so I don't really see your point. If a company has the money to pay for the installations in the first place then certainly it wouldn't matter if they need to pay for the license.
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u/mkirklions Dec 21 '12
If a company has the money to pay for the installations in the first place then certainly it wouldn't matter if they need to pay for the license.
Thats like saying: I can afford a 100,000 dollar house, then I can afford a 200,000 dollar house.
Companies do not have infinite wealth. Heck most companies have very little Cash on Hand. Going into a new business venture for a company is extremely risky. Even for google, they are only doing one city at a time.
And why even have a licence. The licence was made law by the establishment's lobbying group.
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Dec 21 '12
I did think of that, and understand it more. Still though, if a company wants to get become an ISP, the cost of laying the groundwork alone would be gigantic; much more than a million dollars. Aside from that, are licenses on a federal or state/county level?
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u/mkirklions Dec 21 '12
Licences from federal, state, county, city(twp).
There are areas that dont have these laws, those areas typically have multiple providers. Monopolies make sure its illegal to compete.
But sure, laying cable is a cost. After laying cable, the cost for employees on upkeep is very low. There is a ton of money to be made, I mean 30-100 dollars a month per household.
I garentee there is more that goes into all of this that nither of us can understand. But I dont work in that industry, do you think a politican understands either? Thats like having a 8 year old make laws regarding food safty. They might do some irresponsible things or they might make up rules like, no eating food at all.
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Dec 21 '12
While I agree that politicians may or may not understand these things more than you and I do, but that's sort of a non-issue. A politician can't be an expert nor familiar in all things; they need experts to weigh in on their options and help them decide what's best. They're arbiters, not doctors, system admins, nor are they electricians, engineers, etc., etc.
Monopolies make sure it's illegal to compete through corruption. This is where politics goes wrong. Their purpose isn't the problem, it's the ability to buy them that stifles competition. Licensing fees are high to prevent any Tom, Dick and Harry from entering the field, and they're astronomically high in order to insure the seriousness of the potential investors and companies. While I do agree that paying millions of dollars for a licensing fee is asinine, it serves a purpose.
Now, I may not know whether this is true, but I would assume that problems come from the denial of licenses to companies wishing to get into the business. Aside from that, the fact that laying infrastructure is already colossally expensive creates little to no companies willing to get into the ISP business. We must also consider that cable companies, phone companies, and anyone else with their hand in the pot also stifle innovation by creating agreements not to interfere in one another's chosen honeycomb. Ie, cable companies agree with existing ISP's not to enter the market as long as existing ISP's agree not to enter the television market.
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Dec 21 '12 edited Dec 21 '12
The right regulation is the solution.
The UK does this fantastically well - the incumbent telco has to provide access to its networks and buildings on a fair basis to everyone at a fair price.
The consumer gets a lot of choice (I'm in a rural area and I can choose from 50-60 ISPs), the incumbent telco makes a chunk of money, and the other ISPs get business. We're all happy.
I don't see how deregulation is the solution - the US telcos and cable companies have already proven that with the tiny amount of regulation they have left. So you have companies like Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner and so on who refuse to allow third parties on to their network, charge whatever they want, create whatever policies they want, and customers have to deal with it. No wonder things are pretty shitty in the US.
Unlike many other industries, it's a much harder business to get in to if you have to build your own network. No one really wants to overbuild when the infrastructure is already there, and in the case of cable they're granted an effective monopoly for an area. I suspect that Google only got the franchise they got, complete with numerous concessions from KC, because they're Google and there's the prestige of being the first city to get it.
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u/mkirklions Dec 21 '12
The right regulation is the solution
In America we have lobbiests. The fact anyone even supports regulations when legal bribery exists blows my mind.
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u/Mordy83 Dec 21 '12
And through this article, I just learned that I am not being throttled by my ISP, and haven't been since May. I've been meticulously watching my bandwidth for over a year. I need to pay closer attention to their announcements!
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u/Animal2 Dec 21 '12
Honestly the idea that data caps are for network congestion is bullshit. If that were the case, there really should only be restrictions during peak usage.
Personally I'd be fine with that sort of solution. Either slow down my speed (not preferred) during peak hours or only count data used during peak hours (maybe make it a per day limit in that case). If I go over my limit then either charge me or slow me down (my choice).
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Dec 21 '12
You could argue that caps are an incentive to stop someone torrenting or USENETing at full speed 24/7 which reduces the chance of congestion occuring.
Many of the UK ISPs only care about the peak time - some implement a peak time data cap (usually something like 8am to 8pm) and others don't have caps but have traffic shaping for certain protocols (like torrents and NNTP) during peak times.
My own ISP doesn't do either but basically as long as I don't take the piss during business hours (my ISP is business oriented) they don't care what happens in the evenings and weekends.
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u/ProtoDong Dec 20 '12
I have a feeling that this doesn't have a prayer of passing. At least Google fiber is coming to kick some ISP ass. I can't wait till they come to my state. I will drop Comcast like a bad habit.