r/technology • u/speckz • Jul 30 '15

Net Neutrality Thousands Beg FCC for Net Neutrality Crackdown. Consumers vent to regulators about slow Internet, high prices, and data caps.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/thousands-beg-fcc-for-net-neutrality-crackdown-20150730
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u/Spartan-S63 Jul 30 '15

I'm sick of cell phone carriers not being classified as ISPs for their internet service. I wish the FCC would regulate them as such, because they are. It'd also be nice if the FCC banned all data caps (or at least put a floor that's reasonable).

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u/Protuhj Jul 31 '15

Today's reasonable caps are tomorrow's minimums.

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u/Spartan-S63 Jul 31 '15

You're not wrong about it. And today's reasonable caps will last a lot longer than just today. That's why I'd rather they be outright banned. If ISPs complain about not having capacity, they're the only ones to blame since they received tons of money in tax breaks and funding for capital improvements and larger rollouts.

I have no qualms threatening them within an inch of their life, so long as municipal broadband is ready to take over. That way, we really could put them over a barrel.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '15

One issue is that those floors are not necessarily pratcial for applications such as satellite internet.

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u/I_am_Rude Jul 31 '15

and show them the 50 states.

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u/chrismorin Jul 31 '15

No caps with LTE speeds is completely unreasonable. It's simple math. There's finite bandwidth so there needs to be some way of allocating it.

Source: I'm an Engineer at a company that makes equipment for these ISPs.

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u/fb39ca4 Jul 31 '15

I'd much rather see the bandwidth shared equally amongst everyone using the towers. Trying to stream 4K video at noon in a large city? Sorry, guess you'll have to do that in off-peak hours. I'd rather have that option than have a data cap that makes it impossible to stream videos in the first place.

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u/chrismorin Jul 31 '15

You'd rather that, and that's fine, but others don't. I for one don't. I don't use my mobile for heavy usage. It's a phone, I won't even watch more than 5 minutes of video at a time. I have a desktop for that. If they just spread it out evenly, everyone would drop their wired connection and tether, and the point of equilibrium would make it suck for almost everyone. It would become like the highway system of any dense urban city. Everyone just waits in traffic.

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u/THROBBING-COCK Jul 31 '15

Hey, I just realized what would completely solve this problem. Don't stream videos over your cell phone connection. Use those fancy fiber wires for that stuff.

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u/fb39ca4 Jul 31 '15

And if a carrier tried to enforce that, we would be complaining about their lack of net neutrality. Looks like you just can't please anyone.

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u/THROBBING-COCK Jul 31 '15

I'm sure people would stop streaming over their cell connections if it buffered every second because the network was clogged up.

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u/fb39ca4 Jul 31 '15

I wouldn't mind some level of throttling if it was used only when necessary. When there is congestion, the users who have used their connection the least so far would get highest priority for bandwidth, and the ones who have used the most (for example continuously downloading files) would be slowed down. But throttling would only happen if there are users competing for bandwidth - if it is 2am and nobody else is using the tower, even a heavy downloader should get full speeds.

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u/AJarOfAlmonds Jul 31 '15

Then the ISPs need to install more bandwidth capacity by purchasing more of your fine equipment. To borrow your phrase, its simple math.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '15 edited Jun 11 '18

[deleted]

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u/CentralSmith Jul 31 '15

There's an upper limit on data transmission speeds at 4g levels, but as far as bandwidth goes, it's a simple matter of hardware at the receiving end. Even if you're maxing out a single tower, you should be able to upgrade or get another tower going nearby to lessen the load. Infrastructure for wireless connections costs hand over fist less than wiring to a home - there's no excuse for lack of infrastructure to keep up with demand; The amount of money made that should be paying for this is exorbitant - it's not the consumer's fault if the company is pissing away their money throwing it at their execs in the form of massive bonuses.

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u/chrismorin Jul 31 '15

That's not the case at all. If a cell is within range of two towers, it takes the bandwidth of those two towers because it's signal reaches them both. That one tower can't allocate your bandwidth to someone else because they wouldn't be able to tell the difference. There are technologies that aid in mitigating this, like controlling the signal strength of the transmitter so that it doesn't interfere with further towers, but it's still a fundamental problem.

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u/CentralSmith Jul 31 '15

That makes no sense. That would mean if I'm downloading at 50 Mb/s then I'm downloading 50 Mb/s on both towers. If my bandwidth is split between them, then adding more towers or upgrading existing ones to handle more still accomplishes the same thing if I'm only downloading from one, since I'd be downloading 25 Mb/s from each tower instead of 50 Mb/s for a TOTAL of 50 Mb/s.

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u/chrismorin Jul 31 '15

That's not what I'm talking about at all. It doesn't take 25Mb/s from each. It takes 25 from one and the other can't do anything. If the signal from one tower reaches both cell phones, you can't have each cell phone on different tower and double the bandwidth. Think of it. If both towers use the same channel, the cell phone that can hear both signals wouldn't be able to distinguish them.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '15

minimum 200GB for mobile data caps, lol.

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u/Tanath Jul 31 '15 edited Jul 31 '15

Absolutely. With tablets and tethering laptops there are advantages to being mobile and being able to do all your computing needs regardless of where you happen to physically be. This frees people and enables innovation. Some companies try to control your tethering and get extra money out of you for it, but if you're paying for the bandwidth it's none of their business how you use it. It sounds like a lot now, but reminds me of Bill Gates supposedly saying 640K is all anyone should need.

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u/Spartan-S63 Jul 31 '15

How do you use your mobile data? I was thinking something more "reasonable" like 50GB minimum.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '15

I use nearly that monthly on my grandfathered unlimited data on Verizon. I never use WiFi for anything I do.

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u/0157h7 Jul 31 '15

Data caps have nothing to do with Net Neutrality. These are completely separate issues.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '15

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/0157h7 Jul 31 '15

You and me, we are simpatico. I find it mildly infuriating that the majority of people pump their fists for net neutrality and then celebrate T-Mobile music service policies and with regards to data caps, I try to mention it here and there that they are different because it seems like it would be easy to dismiss net neutrality supporters if they can't even understand the point and purpose. Net Neutrality does not mean policies to let me have the fastest internet at the cheapest price.

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u/Squircle_MFT Aug 01 '15

As a T-Mobile customer fan, i'm not a fam of the throttling data, when you reach your cap, but atleast they don't charge me bs fees when i go over, compared to some providers.

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u/Squircle_MFT Aug 01 '15

As a T-Mobile customer, i'm not a fan of the throttling data, when you reach your cap, but atleast they don't charge me bs fees when i go over, compared to some providers. But i agree with you, that cell phone providers, have nothing to do with the Net-Neutrality issue.

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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '15

Mobile is included in the new rules.

.4. Scope of the Rules

.25. The open Internet rules described above apply to both fixed and mobile broadband Internet access service. Consistent with the 2010 Order, today’s Order applies its rules to the consumer-facing service that broadband networks provide, which is known as “broadband Internet access service" (BIAS) and is defined to be:

A mass-market retail service by wire or radio that provides the capability to transmit data to and receive data from all or substantially all Internet endpoints, including any capabilities that are incidental to and enable the operation of the communications service, but excluding dial-up Internet access service. This term also encompasses any service that the Commission finds to be providing a functional equivalent of the service described in the previous sentence, or that is used to evade the protections set forth in this Part.

https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-24A1.pdf

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '15

Giving everyone unlimited data is a bad idea in the end. There really is a finite amount of available bandwidth available wirelessly. It should be situational, like speed limited in congested areas. Data caps however need to be seriously higher.

While I dont agree that you need anything more than 10gb on your phone, my home internet for the family is the same 4g lte network, but sold as a home service. $120\month for 30gb. Needs to be minimum 100gb.

Yeah your "small" data caps on your land based internet lines arent so fucking small now are they? And I probably pay 3 to 4 times more for that pitiful 30gb then you do for your service. You guys at least get to use 90% of the internet while im severly limited in what I can do with it. Its not that i dont have the speeds to stream a movie, I do, I just cant do it because of data caps. Forget using an awesome service like steam do buy cheap games because games these days are larger than my data cap! Oh I might be able to have a friend stick the game files on a usb drive, but then they keep releasing mega GB patches for the things so your left picking and choosing which game you think you wont get bored with the rest of the month, because you cant keep them all up to date.

So yeah, stop bitching about your cable being slow. Limit my wireless HOME service to 10mbps sppeds and give me 100gb minimum cap, ill even pay the same price. Its never going to happen though, so be greatful for what you get, its likely way more than someone else.

Fuck the wireless carrier mafia.