Net Neutrality ??

[cammingcouple]

It was Cogent actually in the incident I'm thinking of. Also, it has everything to do with net neutrality - this is Comcast using explicit tactics to strong-arm a company into a position where they are more likely to accept their terms, which is what net neutrality tries to prevent/set a framework to handle.

It's true that bandwidth is not unlimited, but there's a simple solution - augments and new peering. However, one of Comcast's techniques to strong-arm companies into accepting their peering agreements is by delaying new peering connections and upgrades of existing ones by a very long time - this has the "benefit" of technically not being a throttling technique, but it achieves the same goal.

And in fact, Cogent's version of this story is eerily similar to what we dealt with at my workplace: (from https://www.cnet.com/news/cogent-sa...connection-deal-with-clever-traffic-clogging/ ) :

Maybe we're talking about different situations, but the one I'm thinking was definitely level 3:
https://www.cnet.com/news/understanding-the-level-3-comcast-spat-faq/

My main point was that it wasn't about throttling or de-prioritizing netflix traffic (what most people think of when it comes to net neutrality). How do the regulations have to say about disputes such as that (I'm asking, I honestly don't know) since it's not intentional throttling, but rather lack of bandwidth?

And yes, throttling and lack of bandwidth are very similar (after all, throttling is just artificially introducing a lack of bandwidth). But they are different problems, unless it's done intentionally. Then they are effectively the same thing achieving the same goal. This is also where regulations can be very tricky to implement properly. However, that isn't what happened between comcast and netflix. Netflix made a change to using Level 3 as a CDN. This drastically increased the bandwidth required between Level 3 and comcast. This was not an intentional "throttling" by comcast, but rather a change made by netflix/level 3 that created the need for many times more bandwidth. If it were an intentional action by comcast to create a scenario of insufficient bandwidth targeting netflix specifically, then I would agree it is a net neutrality issue.

How do the net neutrality regulations differentiate between an unintentional lack of bandwidth and an intentional one as a way of throttling?

Edit: We were definitely talking about different situations. I haven't read about the cogent issue. I was thinking the Level 3 fiasco since I remembered that really igniting net neutrality discussions a while ago

 

[weirdbr]

Maybe we're talking about different situations, but the one I'm thinking was definitely level 3:
https://www.cnet.com/news/understanding-the-level-3-comcast-spat-faq/

It might all be the same situation - if you look at the link I posted, there's a mention of a letter from Netflix to Al Franken explaining the situation from their side:

"Prior to our agreement to interconnect directly with Comcast, Netflix purchased all available transit capacity into Comcast's networks from multiple transit providers. Every single one of those transit links to Comcast was congested (even though the transit providers requested extra capacity), resulting in poor video quality for our members," the letter said.

This also answers your point of this being Netflix's change causing the issue - yes, they used level 3, but as an additional provider to try to work around Comcast. (Also, nitpick - they were using L3 as a transit provider, not as a CDN - netflix has their own CDN stack, which Comcast also amusingly refuses to deploy even though it would save them a ton of money in transit/peering).

How do the net neutrality regulations differentiate between an unintentional lack of bandwidth and an intentional one as a way of throttling?

My understanding is that in a case where there's a suspicion of intent to harm to one specific company or product (either by throttling or refusal to upgrade/peer under fair terms), the affected company could invoke the FCC's authority to adjudicate the matter under the Net Neutrality rules via the usual legal methods; this would lead to the usual legal proceedings (which include legal discovery and investigation) to identify whether this is intentional or just horrible capacity planning by either party.

 

[cammingcouple]

It might all be the same situation - if you look at the link I posted, there's a mention of a letter from Netflix to Al Franken explaining the situation from their side:


This also answers your point of this being Netflix's change causing the issue - yes, they used level 3, but as an additional provider to try to work around Comcast. (Also, nitpick - they were using L3 as a transit provider, not as a CDN - netflix has their own CDN stack, which Comcast also amusingly refuses to deploy even though it would save them a ton of money in transit/peering).



My understanding is that in a case where there's a suspicion of intent to harm to one specific company or product (either by throttling or refusal to upgrade/peer under fair terms), the affected company could invoke the FCC's authority to adjudicate the matter under the Net Neutrality rules via the usual legal methods; this would lead to the usual legal proceedings (which include legal discovery and investigation) to identify whether this is intentional or just horrible capacity planning by either party.

This is where the CDN thing came from (not that it matters all that much)

"Last month, Level 3 became a primary CDN for Netflix. This is interesting in itself as Level 3 has traditionally stuck to tier one transit services, but has recently entered the CDN industry. To put into perspective the sheer volume of traffic generated by Netflix, Level 3 says it will add 2.9 Tbps of additional CDN capacity. Naturally, Level 3 set about increasing its peering capacities with other networks to handle this new load."

http://packetlife.net/blog/2010/dec/1/comcast-vs-level-3/

 

[cammingcouple]

My understanding is that in a case where there's a suspicion of intent to harm to one specific company or product (either by throttling or refusal to upgrade/peer under fair terms), the affected company could invoke the FCC's authority to adjudicate the matter under the Net Neutrality rules via the usual legal methods; this would lead to the usual legal proceedings (which include legal discovery and investigation) to identify whether this is intentional or just horrible capacity planning by either party.

If nothing else, that certainly shows that proving "throttling" is a bit more complex than running a bandwidth test through a VPN

 

[weirdbr]

This is where the CDN thing came from (not that it matters all that much)

Interesting; that makes more sense. And looking at wiki, it looks like netflix only announced/started offering their own CDN in the second half of 2012.

If nothing else, that certainly shows that proving "throttling" is a bit more complex than running a bandwidth test through a VPN

Yeah, personally I would recommend that just as a work-around, but never really as definitive proof of throttling - usually when we report issues caused by throttling we rely on very specific details of the protocols involved as evidence.

 

[AudriTwo]

MADISON RIVER: In 2005, North Carolina ISP Madison River Communications blocked the voice-over-internet protocol (VOIP) service Vonage. Vonage filed a complaint with the FCC after receiving a slew of customer complaints. The FCC stepped in to sanction Madison River and prevent further blocking, but it lacks the authority to stop this kind of abuse today.

COMCAST: In 2005, the nation’s largest ISP, Comcast, began secretly blocking peer-to-peer technologies that its customers were using over its network. Users of services like BitTorrent and Gnutella were unable to connect to these services. 2007 investigations from the Associated Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others confirmed that Comcast was indeed blocking or slowing file-sharing applications without disclosing this fact to its customers.

TELUS: In 2005, Canada’s second-largest telecommunications company, Telus, began blocking access to a server that hosted a website supporting a labor strike against the company. Researchers at Harvard and the University of Toronto found that this action resulted in Telus blocking an additional 766 unrelated sites.

AT&T: From 2007–2009, AT&T forced Apple to block Skype and other competing VOIP phone services on the iPhone. The wireless provider wanted to prevent iPhone users from using any application that would allow them to make calls on such “over-the-top” voice services. The Google Voice app received similar treatment from carriers like AT&T when it came on the scene in 2009.

WINDSTREAM: In 2010, Windstream Communications, a DSL provider with more than 1 million customers at the time, copped to hijacking user-search queries made using the Google toolbar within Firefox. Users who believed they had set the browser to the search engine of their choice were redirected to Windstream’s own search portal and results.

MetroPCS: In 2011, MetroPCS, at the time one of the top-five U.S. wireless carriers, announced plans to block streaming video over its 4G network from all sources except YouTube. MetroPCS then threw its weight behind Verizon’s court challenge against the FCC’s 2010 open internet ruling, hoping that rejection of the agency’s authority would allow the company to continue its anti-consumer practices.

PAXFIRE: In 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation found that several small ISPs were redirecting search queries via the vendor Paxfire. The ISPs identified in the initial Electronic Frontier Foundation report included Cavalier, Cogent, Frontier, Fuse, DirecPC, RCN and Wide Open West. Paxfire would intercept a person’s search request at Bing and Yahoo and redirect it to another page. By skipping over the search service’s results, the participating ISPs would collect referral fees for delivering users to select websites.

AT&T, SPRINT and VERIZON: From 2011–2013, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon blocked Google Wallet, a mobile-payment system that competed with a similar service called Isis, which all three companies had a stake in developing.

EUROPE: A 2012 report from the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications found that violations of Net Neutrality affected at least one in five users in Europe. The report found that blocked or slowed connections to services like VOIP, peer-to-peer technologies, gaming applications and email were commonplace.

VERIZON: In 2012, the FCC caught Verizon Wireless blocking people from using tethering applications on their phones. Verizon had asked Google to remove 11 free tethering applications from the Android marketplace. These applications allowed users to circumvent Verizon’s $20 tethering fee and turn their smartphones into Wi-Fi hot spots. By blocking those applications, Verizon violated a Net Neutrality pledge it made to the FCC as a condition of the 2008 airwaves auction.

AT&T: In 2012, AT&T announced that it would disable the FaceTime video-calling app on its customers’ iPhones unless they subscribed to a more expensive text-and-voice plan. AT&T had one goal in mind: separating customers from more of their money by blocking alternatives to AT&T’s own products.

VERIZON: During oral arguments in Verizon v. FCC in 2013, judges asked whether the phone giant would favor some preferred services, content or sites over others if the court overruled the agency’s existing open internet rules. Verizon counsel Helgi Walker had this to say: “I’m authorized to state from my client today that but for these rules we would be exploring those types of arrangements.” Walker’s admission might have gone unnoticed had she not repeated it on at least five separate occasions during arguments.

 

[cammingcouple]

MADISON RIVER: In 2005, North Carolina ISP Madison River Communications blocked the voice-over-internet protocol (VOIP) service Vonage. Vonage filed a complaint with the FCC after receiving a slew of customer complaints. The FCC stepped in to sanction Madison River and prevent further blocking, but it lacks the authority to stop this kind of abuse today.

COMCAST: In 2005, the nation’s largest ISP, Comcast, began secretly blocking peer-to-peer technologies that its customers were using over its network. Users of services like BitTorrent and Gnutella were unable to connect to these services. 2007 investigations from the Associated Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others confirmed that Comcast was indeed blocking or slowing file-sharing applications without disclosing this fact to its customers.

TELUS: In 2005, Canada’s second-largest telecommunications company, Telus, began blocking access to a server that hosted a website supporting a labor strike against the company. Researchers at Harvard and the University of Toronto found that this action resulted in Telus blocking an additional 766 unrelated sites.

AT&T: From 2007–2009, AT&T forced Apple to block Skype and other competing VOIP phone services on the iPhone. The wireless provider wanted to prevent iPhone users from using any application that would allow them to make calls on such “over-the-top” voice services. The Google Voice app received similar treatment from carriers like AT&T when it came on the scene in 2009.

WINDSTREAM: In 2010, Windstream Communications, a DSL provider with more than 1 million customers at the time, copped to hijacking user-search queries made using the Google toolbar within Firefox. Users who believed they had set the browser to the search engine of their choice were redirected to Windstream’s own search portal and results.

MetroPCS: In 2011, MetroPCS, at the time one of the top-five U.S. wireless carriers, announced plans to block streaming video over its 4G network from all sources except YouTube. MetroPCS then threw its weight behind Verizon’s court challenge against the FCC’s 2010 open internet ruling, hoping that rejection of the agency’s authority would allow the company to continue its anti-consumer practices.

PAXFIRE: In 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation found that several small ISPs were redirecting search queries via the vendor Paxfire. The ISPs identified in the initial Electronic Frontier Foundation report included Cavalier, Cogent, Frontier, Fuse, DirecPC, RCN and Wide Open West. Paxfire would intercept a person’s search request at Bing and Yahoo and redirect it to another page. By skipping over the search service’s results, the participating ISPs would collect referral fees for delivering users to select websites.

AT&T, SPRINT and VERIZON: From 2011–2013, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon blocked Google Wallet, a mobile-payment system that competed with a similar service called Isis, which all three companies had a stake in developing.

EUROPE: A 2012 report from the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications found that violations of Net Neutrality affected at least one in five users in Europe. The report found that blocked or slowed connections to services like VOIP, peer-to-peer technologies, gaming applications and email were commonplace.

VERIZON: In 2012, the FCC caught Verizon Wireless blocking people from using tethering applications on their phones. Verizon had asked Google to remove 11 free tethering applications from the Android marketplace. These applications allowed users to circumvent Verizon’s $20 tethering fee and turn their smartphones into Wi-Fi hot spots. By blocking those applications, Verizon violated a Net Neutrality pledge it made to the FCC as a condition of the 2008 airwaves auction.

AT&T: In 2012, AT&T announced that it would disable the FaceTime video-calling app on its customers’ iPhones unless they subscribed to a more expensive text-and-voice plan. AT&T had one goal in mind: separating customers from more of their money by blocking alternatives to AT&T’s own products.

VERIZON: During oral arguments in Verizon v. FCC in 2013, judges asked whether the phone giant would favor some preferred services, content or sites over others if the court overruled the agency’s existing open internet rules. Verizon counsel Helgi Walker had this to say: “I’m authorized to state from my client today that but for these rules we would be exploring those types of arrangements.” Walker’s admission might have gone unnoticed had she not repeated it on at least five separate occasions during arguments.

Most of those situations occurred and were resolved before Net Neutrality became law in 2015. These actually serve as examples of why it's not as necessary as people make it out to be and the sky is not falling if it's repealed. If companies want to do stupid shit like block netflix, let them dig their own grave while companies like T-Mobile not only give away netflix for free, but allow you to stream it on their network without it counting against your data. I would much rather see companies like comcast and verizon fail from their own stupidity and greed while companies like T-Mobile rise up and steal their market share. Unfortunately, government regulation such as net neutrality stops that natural process from happening while awful companies like comcast continue to do business.

Now I'm fully aware and acknowledge that unlike the wireless carriers (where I have zero concern for net neutrality since there's plenty of competition), that broadband is slightly different due to monopolies. That is the real problem. Net neutrality laws are only possibly necessary there because there is lack of competition. I'd rather solve that than see the bandaid solution of net neutrality which only means shitty companies like comcast will have to find new ways to be shitty. And if there's one thing comcast is great at (and probably the only thing they're great at) is being shitty. Depending on an incompetent government to tell an incompetent company how to conduct business seems a bit like the blind leading the blind and a losing strategy.

Unfortunately, we do have a monopoly in a lot of areas. However, even then, comcast does seem to back off when called out on their BS (such as them blocking torrent traffic). Notice in the example you gave, it wasn't government regulations that ended that practice. It was because comcast, while having a monopoly in many places, still has to answer to consumers. And if you piss off your consumers enough, your business will fail.

I say, pave the way for more competiton. That should be priority #1, not net neutrality regulations. If it helps some people sleep better at night that the sky isn't falling, then go ahead. I'm not really opposed to it. In fact, I may be in favor of it just to piss off comcast (I really hate comcast if you can't tell). I just don't think it's anywhere near as big of a deal as people make it out to be and there are far better solutions to those issues.

 

[cammingcouple]

Correction: It was the FCC cracking down on comcast's torrent blocking. Still prior to 2015 when net neutrality became official.

 

[HiGirlsRHot]

Most of those situations occurred and were resolved before Net Neutrality became law in 2015. These actually serve as examples of why it's not as necessary as people make it out to be and the sky is not falling if it's repealed. If companies want to do stupid shit like block netflix, let them dig their own grave while companies like T-Mobile not only give away netflix for free, but allow you to stream it on their network without it counting against your data. I would much rather see companies like comcast and verizon fail from their own stupidity and greed while companies like T-Mobile rise up and steal their market share. Unfortunately, government regulation such as net neutrality stops that natural process from happening while awful companies like comcast continue to do business.

.

In my lifetime I've seen virtually the same argument used against the de-regulation of the telephone business, airline, and banking. (It wasn't that long ago that if an airline wanted to lower a fare, or bank wanted to lower the interest rate on a loan, they had to get approval from a regulator.) The argument without a bunch of rules in place, the monopoly or duopoly in a marketplace would screw the consumer.
While this did happen for short period of time in some markets, the overall effect for the consumer was very positive. Flying is often a worse experience than it was 40 years ago, but tickets only cost 1/3 as much, which is a good trade off IMO. Buying or selling stocks, is 50x cheaper than when I bought my first shares many years ago.
I've seen a bunch of often conflicting statistic about the access to broadband. I do know there are more than 30 ISPs in the US with more than 1 million subscribers each which are a lot. I have 1/2 dozen broadband choices in Honolulu, my mom in rural Oregon population 2,000 had 3 companies. I expect will see a similar pattern for a rural areas for broadband that we see for airlines. In some years they'll only be one provider and they'll jack the price up but that will attract competition and you'll see price wars. In the cities, ISP will continue to offer teasers to switch. (If you don't call up your ISP/cable company every year or two and threaten to switch to the competition you are wasting money.)
To me, one of the biggest lies of the net neutrality is that idea that all packets should be treated the same. This makes no sense, A doctor in the Mayo Clinic assisting a surgery in some remote place in Africa, using Apple facetime, needs his packets to sent and received at the highest priority and certainly would willing to a pay premium. A competitive gamer also needs a fast super reliable connection and if they want to pay premium who are we to stop them?. I'd like to see Hula, Amazon, and Netflix start competing on the best streaming service instead just on the number of movies and TV shows. On the other hand, if the packets containing this message take an extra 30 second to reach the server hosting AmberCutie's forum, I could care less.
There is somewhat scarce resource, bandwidth. How do we go about prioritizing who's packets get sent first? We have this really ingenious system it is called the free market. If Bill is only willing to spend $30 for a top camgirls panties, and Bob is willing to spend $100 we let Bob get the panties. But Bill isn't complete screwed he maybe able to find a less popular model who is willing to sell him panties for $30. The system can actually work just fine on the internet. If an ISP wants to over premium service, we should let them because the result will be lower prices for the rest of us. Frankly, I'm not going to lose any sleep if a bunch of pirates torrenting copyright material from Piratesbay has their torrenting throttled.

 

[weirdbr]

A good addition to this discussion - map of locations in the US with a single ISP available:

 

[cammingcouple]

A good addition to this discussion - map of locations in the US with a single ISP available:

That map is also from 6/2013. The newest map (apparently, they stopped updating in 2014) is a bit improved. Still not great, but more progress than I would expected in 1 year. Pull up the maps side by side, and you can see those areas thinned quite a bit, especially along the east coast.
https://www.broadbandmap.gov/number-of-providers

That data is still 3 years old and I wonder if it continued to improve at the same rate. Still a ways to go, but somewhat encouraging. Especially when considering population. Looking at the opposite map (the areas where 2 or more ISPs are available), the most population dense areas are covered pretty well, particularly the northeast. While coverage by geographic area looks rather poor, the majority of the US population may actually have a choice. And WTF is up with North Dakota of all places?

 

[SaffronBurke]

Bump


ResistBot is great at writing letters for you. This tweet thread has a great letter to copy/paste.

And since I've seen people on Twitter surprised/worried, yes, it needs your name and address. You're writing to your representatives, they need to know who the letter is coming from. When it's done, it'll fax it to your people.

 

[Dan Epstein]

Has anyone read Xhamster's explanation on Ynot? I found it quite helpful.

 

[Lucid1]

It's true that bandwidth is not unlimited, but there's a simple solution - augments and new peering.

Aside from net neutrality, this is an often under reported issue. All ISP's use a certain percentage of "over subsciption", meaning that if if they have a capacity of "X" gigabits per second, they will usually subscribe 150% of that capacity under the premise that all of those users will never be online at the same time. As it was several years ago, the issue is one of what is known as "light up costs". There is now enough fiber in the ground across the USA to provide throttle-free internet connections to most of the USA without any over-subscription shenanigans. The problem is that it is just laying there not doing anything because the "light up" costs are so high that it is prohibitive to do so.

 

[Ann_Sulu]

 

[MojitosJourney]

Woke up today to a bunch of tweets saying what we had feared has happened in regards to net neutrality. This makes me wonder if Myfreecams built CamYou because they saw this coming!

 

[SMuser69]

Woke up today to a bunch of tweets saying what we had feared has happened in regards to net neutrality. This makes me wonder if Myfreecams built CamYou because they saw this coming!

Fortunately the ISP can't do anything immediately. At least while there's a congressional bill making a round against them it's not in their interests to be 'the bad guys'. Right now they won and gained a PR nightmare from it. If they don't show 'good faith' in some form immediately the bill will gain adopters at a more rapid rate.

We're more than a year away before things die down enough they can do any overt without a shit ton of 'told you so' finger pointing. Or they could be really stupid make a huge change and force congress to pass a law they don't really WANT to pass just because they know it will look good for them to actually pass something people might approve of.

I'm counting the days before Trump tweets Pai under the bus for doing exactly what Trump told him.

 

[HiGirlsRHot]

Fortunately the ISP can't do anything immediately. At least while there's a congressional bill making a round against them it's not in their interests to be 'the bad guys'. Right now they won and gained a PR nightmare from it. If they don't show 'good faith' in some form immediately the bill will gain adopters at a more rapid rate.

We're more than a year away before things die down enough they can do any overt without a shit ton of 'told you so' finger pointing. Or they could be really stupid make a huge change and force congress to pass a law they don't really WANT to pass just because they know it will look good for them to actually pass something people might approve of.

I think one year the internet will be virtually the same for 90%+ of us. For the other 10% I think there is as good a chance it will be better (faster, cheaper, more consistent) than worse.

One of the real downsides of the incredible partisanship we have in the country is a huge exaggeration of the impact the government has on our daily lives.

 

[Naomi_R94]

"I’m just gonna leave this here"

 

[AudriTwo]

 

[AudriTwo]