Network Neutrality

Miscellaneous General
1

Net neutrality is a cult. This political cult is funded by Internet companies who are afraid that ISPs would block them. Google funds net neutrality in order to prevent ISPs from blocking Gmail and forcing their users to use their own e-mail application instead.

I probably agree that the current ISPs would block their competitors, because of the current ISP monopoly. But if the consumer has hundreds of ISPs to choose from, they can just switch to another ISP if one ISP block its competitors. The current regulations disfavor the creation of new firms. (See Anti-monopoly and anti-cartel laws HURT competition)

Some people would legalize net neutrality as a solution. They would not think about repealing the regulations that caused the ISP monopoly at the first place.

Another similar situation is the legalization of cell phone unlocking. Legalization of this makes cell phones more expensive. There is always a cost when you get something cheaper. This law that allows unlocking of cell phones is just another failed anti-monopoly regulation. Why not just deregulize and encourage the creation of new competing firms so the user can have a selection of “innately” unlocked cell phones to choose from?

This unlock legalization law is like the government limiting a “dichotomy” between cell phone services and physical cell phones. This market socialist regulation limits innovation. Examples of how this coercive dichotomy limits innovation is that it limits the creation of new, more efficient protocols for a specific cell phones. It also inhibits the creation of new, high bandwidth cell phones that are able to download movies and music from the internet. It inhibits the creation of cell phones that does not just transfer sound, but also transfers video simutaneously.

Likewise, the Internet was invented by private companies and the government almost prevented the creation of the Internet. http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=innovation_regulation_and_the_internet

A perfectly rational person cannot support net neutrality. Net neutrality has benefits in this market-socialist economy, but there would be MUCH more benefits if the government deregulized the economy.

2

Yep. It’s the Union Pacific Railroad all over again. The ICC was created to establish price floors for the railroads so that the inefficient Union Pacific, which many politicians were invested in, could survive.

Net Neutrality is just another form of price floor. By preventing ISP’s from charging higher prices to some customers they are preventing lower prices for other customers.

3

How is network neutrality the same thing as a price floor? It doesn’t say anything about setting a standard price for Internet access; in fact, as far as I can tell it doesn’t make any statements which could be weighed economically. Rather, it prevents the yet-unplumbed prospect of competition for Internet bandwidth, which isn’t a market if the ISPs don’t decide to make it into one. Not criticizing you, just curious.

4

Because it makes it illegal to give customers higher priority in exchange for more money.

5

Here’s an article talking about the whole network neutrality thing.

6

Check out my one-minute case against net neutrality.

7

But currently, there is no market for priority… instead of a price floor, imagine a big red X over the entire supply-demand chart. “NO MARKET ALLOWED”

As far as I can tell this does not explain why it is the same thing as a price floor.

“Regulation stifles innovation”-- true! If you’re arguing for net neutrality you don’t want innovations in packet flow. The argument about gaining control of Congress to create favorable legislation is meaningless because that’s the way things work regardless of whether the law is currently working the way you want it.

“Consumers fed up with expensive cable and DSL services are demanding more government controls over the pricing and behavior of their ISP’s.”-- This has nothing to do with net neutrality which is about preventing the creation of a market which currently doesn’t exist. If there is no such thing as a “fast lane” bandwidth market, then there is no competition to be stifled. There is an existing market for providing Internet service, which I agree should have fewer regulations.

“The great thing about capitalism is that it also gives people the freedom to decide whom they want to do business with.”-- Joining the Internet backbone is a market with a high barrier to entry. A new business cannot simply pop up to answer consumer complaints. The government has both the right and the responsibility to make sure such non-ideal markets do not get out of control.

“Why do ‘net neutrality’ advocates ridicule politicians for comparing the Internet to a ‘series of tubes,’ and then trust them to regulate it?”-- You’d better watch who you’re quoting! That comparison was made by Ted Stevens arguing against network neutrality. If you’re saying one person can speak for all people in a group, that goes both ways!

This article talks about regulation of existing markets but doesn’t say what the effects of net neutrality would be.

8

So now there is a ‘right’ (of the government, no less) to have ‘perfectly’ competitive markets (the joke being that perfect competition is a conceptual tool, used for neoclassical economic analyses)?

9

I didn’t say that government should fix the markets, just that when limited choice affects consumers, the government should make sure that oligopoly does not cause exploitation.

10

No, the government should not restrict oligopolies. Restricting oligopolies is bad. (see Anti-monopoly and anti-cartel laws HURT competition) Intellectual property oligopolies create innovation. But the coercive ISP monopoly would be exploiting unless telephone and cable companies and telephone cables are completely deregulized. So the best thing is to deregulize the whole economy, not to price fix the oligopolies.

11

Instituting a monopoly to deal with monopolies is hardly the wisest thing to do - especially considering how this monopoly tends to facilitate the creation of other monopolies. The appropriate number of firms in a market is for the market itself to determine, rather than nonsensical models of ‘perfect’ competition (I don’t know if you hold to those Averos, but most anti-trust arguments hinge crucially on the economics behind it.)

12

I think part of the problem is it isn’t really a price floor but one price for all traffic. They want to force the ISPs to charge the same price for the first packet that they do for the ten-billionth packet. One effect would be that the high bandwidth customers would be subsidized by the people who only check their e-mail and read a few websites here and there instead of running movie torrents 24/7. The very business model of the supporters of net neutrality depend on bandwidth being charge the same for all customers because their ‘products’ require high bandwidth to operate.

Just imagine how many people would visit youtube on a regular basis (and generated ad impressions) if it constantly pushed them over their lower priced tiered bandwidth plan.

No, they want all the customers to pay for innovation that only a fraction will see the benefit from. I don’t see anyone arguing for favorable regulation but for no regulation – including getting rid of current regulations that exist to prop up the telco monopolies.

The market does infact exist. You can get dialup, crappy DSL, good DSL, really good DSL, and whatever is above DSL coming down the exact same set of wires.

The market you talk about not existing is charging variable prices for packets to enter the commons. The more the bandwidth improves through technology the more high bandwidth applications come online to use up the newly available bandwidth so it’s a constant struggle to keep people from putting too many sheep on the commons and eventually hurting everyone.

There are only two ways to prevent the tragedy of the commons, government regulation and private property rights – we just need to determine if the collection of independently operated networks are ‘private’ or ‘public’ property.

Well yeah if you have to compete with government granted monopolies you are going to have nothing but a high barrier to entry. But let’s say the people of Springfield get fed up and set up a private mesh wireless network. With net neutrality their network is soon to be flooded by youtube and bittorrent pron packets and it would be illegal for them to do some traffic shaping or charge higher prices for the bandwidth hogs. One price for every packet is the rule.

Oh, and what exactly is a non-ideal market? The only one I can think of is one with government using their ‘right and responsibility’ to stifle competition and help one market actor benefit at the detriment of all the others…which is what net neutrality is all about.

Isn’t that the whole point of us having a democratic republic, so that one person can speak for a whole group – congressional districts in this instance.

How many Congresscritters are more knowledgeable than Ted Stevens? How many have taken the time to research the issue and verify the claims being made by the various lobbyists? How many will vote to help the people instead of helping their chances of re-election?

These are the problems you run into when you trust a political class to regulate industry.

13

That is the dumbest thing I’ve heard today, perhaps all month.

14

Most consumers have one cable provider, one to four DSL providers, satellite, and more dial-up providers. Soon wireless MANs will be available. In the vast majority of areas, there isn’t a monopoly on the last mile.

15

Agreed, but options aren’t panoply (“hundreds”) as the OP puts it. It is only prudent to censure ourselves when we hear each other start talking in hyperboles like 7th grade children. When we make the free market sound utopian – without growing pains, we are being dishonest to ourselves and others. While we feel it is a better overall system, we have to speak rightly.

Also we seem to be skipping how AT&T, and others telecoms, have been acting as arms of the DOJ. Or how traffic data bias effects more than the last mile. The OP over-glorify the private network and has a very parochial view of what the internet is. I have a private network and its pretty dull. I have a few services running but after a while it gets old. I want access to the public network.

16

There’s no such thing as a public network.

What you have is a bunch of interconnected ‘private’ networks that work together to route packets from the source to the destination. All of these independent networks are owned by someone.

Your logic is the very reason the network neutrality debate is happening in the first place…well that and the government seems intent on regulating and controlling everything that has the misfortune of existing.

People are already starting to apply the ‘public good’ arguments to the internet so everyone can freely access the ‘public’ network because, ya know, it’s a market failure that 100% of the population doesn’t have broadband access. Doesn’t seem like such a good idea to encourage them.

Or perhaps the ‘public network’ statement was meant as hyperbole…

17

Perhaps you should start by looking up ‘internet’ in a dictionary.

18

You’re wrong. For the internet to be a public good, servers would have to be. Its often free, its never public.

19

From the wikipedia:

So a network is private property but a ‘network of networks’ is public property, is that what you’re trying to say?

20

Your selection bias is obvious sonny, – from wikipedia (first sentence!)
“The Internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP).”
If certain parts are no longer publicly available then it is not really the internet any more is it? It then becomes what ISP “X” deems the internet as, an extension of their private network.
I think your tumescence for the free market is leading you astray. Why don’t we fix the economic system first then worry about whether or not small government would work. Otherwise if we put the cart ahead of the horse, for example, remarkably monied interests against gold, libertarianism and austrian economics could blacklist such sites. You’ld be a fool to think it couldn’t happen.