Timothy Lee, a former Cato scholar, catches a clue:
In 2008, I wrote a paper for the Cato Institute questioning the need for network neutrality regulations; I argued that the Internet’s decentralized architecture made it inherently resistant to mischief by broadband incumbents. While I’m still skeptical about the wisdom of network neutrality regulations, I’ve become more concerned about the state of the broadband market in the four years since writing that paper.[…]
What changed my thinking was less the theoretical arguments set out in that piece than it was a sequence of developments in the telecom marketplace, all of which forced me to reexamine my own assumptions about the state of US broadband. […]
He goes on to point out what’s been pretty obvious since well before 2008: the phone and cable monopolies control delivery of Internet to households, and if their infrastructure doesn’t support fast Internet service, they won’t make it any faster if they can get away with it. It takes a serious devotion to confabulation to see a free market and good intentions when your own lying eyes see nothing but a duopoly and the desire to milk every penny out of the customer.
Here’s a case in point: Comcast, which is subject to net neutrality rules, is nevertheless prioritizing traffic on its own Xfinity video streaming service over traffic from services like Netflix and Hulu. That traffic goes on a “separate lane” from other Internet traffic, and, more importantly, it doesn’t count against the Comcast subscriber’s monthly cap. That’s exactly what net neutrality advocates warned against in 2008, and what our man from Cato poo-poohed, and Cato is still working to weaken the FCC’s enforcement powers to stop Comcast from exploiting its monopoly.
I’m glad Lee is finally learning that we have a problem with our Internet infrastructure, but in the time since he wrote that piece for Cato, we’ve been slowly losing ground to other countries (we’re 8th or 15th in the world in broadband penetration, depending on how you interpret the numbers) and the cable monopolies have been devising ever more clever ways to retain the profits they’re losing from cord cutters, no thanks to believers in free market fairytales like him.
Walker
They really need to remove this guy from Ars Technica. His articles are generally horrible.
polyorchnid octopunch
From 2001: “We can design a system that’s proof against accident and stupidity; but we CAN’T design one that’s proof against deliberate malice.”
Glibertarians need to read better scifi.
gene108
The whole idea that businesses actually want to compete against each other is nuts and this is where right-wingers fail.
If businesses could successfully collude and carve up the market they would. The default position of any large firm is to move towards a monopoly.
It’s government regulation that prevents this from happening. Deregulation is an invitation to consolidation and less competition.
WereBear
The cable companies have enjoyed a monopoly from the very beginning. And boy, do they love to act like it.
Comrade Javamanphil
@gene108: Why do you hate America, commie?
Randy P
Obviously not a good neocon, if he’s willing to believe facts over theory. There is no global warming, Obama raised your taxes and abstinence-only education works!
donquijoterocket
@polyorchnid octopunch:
A writer I trust more than this reporter or the subject says:common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. – Douglas Adams
Regardless I know turning the problem over to the “free market” is an invitation to dysfunction.
Freddie deBoer
Great post.
Zach
Are you talking about the local Xfinity service for regular TV or the online version that you can access from your laptop and whatnot through a normal browser? If it’s the former, that’s not all that different from splitting bandwidth between a cable modem and video signals. I’m all for net neutrality when it comes to the Internet as a global network, but I don’t think you should prevent folks from operating local/proprietary networks which is beneficial for efficiency and security reasons. Problems related to net neutrality arise when you provide access to things that are also available online globally on a prioritized basis.
McJulie
Libertarianism is built on three premises: individuals act with perfect rationality, for-profit businesses operate with inherent virtue, and governments can’t do anything right.
I think they believe the occasional truth of #3 proves the other two.
Roger Moore
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Good thing the world is now 100% malice free, then, isn’t it.
RareSanity
@Zach:
The question is not, should Comcast be allowed to operate a proprietary (to use your term) network or not, they should.
However, the concern would be, is Comcast using this managed (to use their term) network, to circumvent net neutrality rules regarding media delivery? Personally, I think that the rules need to be clarified to provide a definition of what is, “cable TV service”, and what is “streaming video service”.
This is where Comcast is getting over.
“Cable TV service”, should be defined as video (and associated audio) being broadcast over an operator’s network, that makes use of industry standard protocols and access control gateways (Set Top Box, CableCARD), to delivery media, to a TV/monitor, directly connected to the gateway.
“Streaming Video Service”, should be defined as video (and associated audio), being broadcast via some IP based method, to generic media consumption devices (computer, tablet, smartphone), using some other method for access control (user ID and password, software token, etc.).
There is only one reason that Comcast is running their IP based, streaming video service, on the managed side of their network…bandwidth and therefore speed. Comcast’s service is no different than what Netflix or Amazon offers, from a technical standpoint. Therefore, it should enjoy NO special treatment.
One of two things needs to happen with this, either give other streaming services equal access to the managed network, or run your service at equal priority on the un-managed network.
The other concern is how does Comcast’s use of this managed network affect the performance of the un-managed network? If the private network starts to get a little crowded with people streaming video, does Comcast start shifting resources from the non-private network? How much of the total bandwidth going into a customer’s house, does this private network consume? How much of that is used strictly for cable TV, and how much is used as a private data “pipe”? How has this changed since the net neutrality rules were put in place?
You may not think so, but you are looking at the latest strategy to circumvent rules intended to protect consumers, not profits. As VP Biden would say, “This is a big fuckin’ deal”.
RareSanity
(sorry for the double post, I forgot to include a reply to @polyorchnid octopunch’s comment)
I’m an engineer and my boss says something, probably derived from this quote, but much more entertaining:
“Every time you think you’ve designed something to be idiot-proof, they invent better idiots…”
Or, as the original quote alludes, people acting out of malice, masquerading as idiots.
Martin
Hmm. Here’s the problem – it’s always been that way, and its hard to see how it might work any other way. AT&T also puts their voice traffic on a separate lane. What we’re witnessing is non-internet based services that we’ve been buying, in some case for over a century, transforming into internet based services and in some ways punishing the companies for doing it.
Put another way, if they were to make all of their TV IP-based, should my downloading the latest Steam game knock off the TV show my wife is watching upstairs? TV and phone are real-time protocols running up against as-needed data protocols. Should Hulu get the same real-time priority as Comcast’s TV service? Maybe, but Hulu shouldn’t get that for free – and that’s the real problem with the market model we have. People would be pissed if their TV cut out every time their kid fired up a YouTube video, so I think Comcast is right to protect their existing market which people do pay a premium for.
But I wonder if the end state here won’t be some kind of real-time vs non-real time data distinction. Because when we get down to it, the Net Neutrality battle that is really playing out isn’t over protected speech or anything like that – it’s over who do you get your TV from – your cable provider or Netflix? Because video is where most of our high-speed bandwidth is going.
RareSanity
@Martin:
This is not really a good analogy.
A better analogy would be if AT&T offered a “Skype-like” service, available to anyone with an internet connection…in addition to their core phone service. What if I had this AT&T VoIP service, but AT&T routed this service over the “private” line, instead of the same pipe that Skype would have to use?
Would you not agree, that they are giving their service preference over equivalent competing services?
There is also a distinction in regards to Comcast.
The distinction is their core TV service, and their separate streaming service. The core TV service, should absolutely be allowed to use this private network, as that is one of Comcast’s core services.
The streaming service, however, should not. The streaming service has come about, precisely because of other services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and the like. Comcast’s core service, is not a direct competitor to those services, because as you very adeptly stated, it is a real-time service. Their streaming service is not.
It is the streaming service specifically, that is a direct competitor to those services. It is functionally the same as those services, and it is currently violating the spirit of the net-neutrality rules.
Comcast as a network operator, is providing preferred handling, not available to competing services, to it’s own service.
El Cid
Comcast is launching its own online movie/content streaming, to whatever device, just like Hulu etc, so they are indeed aiming to directly compete.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Roger Moore: The novel, Roger, not the year. The novel.
Villago Delenda Est
@gene108:
DING DING DING DING DING
Adam Smith figured this out 235 years ago.
Martin
@RareSanity:
There’s no meaningful difference between voice and VOIP, though. T-Mobile already hands your cell call over to a local WiFi station if it has a stronger signal and switches back – transparently.
Sure, but then you’re paying them for the voice service above and beyond what you’re paying for data. If you turn off your Comcast TV and keep the internet, then not only does Xfinity not get preferential bandwidth – you don’t get the service at all. Same for AT&T voice on an iPad data plan.
The market says that it is a direct competitor. The cable subscriber numbers make that clear enough. Services like Netflix and Hulu were originally viewed by the networks and studios as ‘add on’ services, not intended as cable replacements. That’s obvious from the subscriber fees for Netflix, etc. But consumers are now treating them as replacements, not add-ons which is why Blockbuster got bought by Dish and why Netflix and Hulu are losing their network/studio support. But moving the traditional TV model to a fully on-demand model is an inevitability. In some number of years, perhaps quite soon, there will be no distinction between TV and streaming services, just as there is now no distinction between dedicated voice and VOIP. So, how does the TV revenue model work then?
Keep in mind that how everyone gets paid is a bigger problem then the technological ones – which was true with VOIP as well. There are plenty of markets that now have enough bandwidth to do everything on-demand, but unrolling the contracts and working out a payment mechanism is holding everything back. That’s why there’s limited HBO streaming – their contracts with the cable companies don’t allow it as easily as other networks.
The Other Chuck
Comcast is actually building that content delivery network, and I see no reason why they shouldn’t be allowed to use it to their own benefit. Where there gets to be a problem is with the caps: will they start shrinking the caps (or just never raise them) in order to throttle the competition? Intent is important here.
If there were robust competition, there wouldn’t even be a question, but all the major carriers are colluding here to put third party content distributors at a disadvantage.
gene108
@RareSanity:
The whole concept of “direct” competition in the streaming/cable T.V. segment is pretty broad.
Everyone competes against each other, even though they aren’t in the same segment, by traditional standards.
You can throw Best Buy and other DVD/Blue-Ray retailers as competitors to Netflix and Hulu, because people who buy content won’t be as likely to stream it.
The really sad thing is that the only reason there’s competition in the first place is because net neutrality. If business had its way content providers and distributors, i.e. T.V. networks would consolidate and drive out the competition.
It’s already happening with the NBC/Universal/Comcast merger.
Given the fact that there are no laws that allow for distribution of on-line content, unlike printed material, streaming services are being forced to a premium to content providers for each subscriber. With printed media, there’s an old law that allows the purchase of a book, for example, to convey some degree of ownership to the content and allow you to distribute it to other people, which is how libraries can function.
There’s no such protection for streaming providers, so content providers are demanding higher royalties on a per subscriber basis.
RareSanity
@Martin:
The distinction I was referring to, is more of a marketing one, then a technical one. The difference being the service I get when I sign up for phone service, and a what I would get if I were to download a Skype-ish computer application from their website.
As a footnote, as of last year, T-Mobile changed the method in which it implements WiFi calling. Phones will no longer seamlessly switch between networks. If you initiate a call, while you are on WiFi, and you leave that access point’s range, your call will drop. Conversely, if you are using the cellular network, and come in range of a known WiFi network, it will not switch over.
If you are familiar with the technologies, they have stopped using UMA in favor of IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem). I had a BlackBerry on T-Mobile with UMA, and I have an Android phone that uses the IMS. I have noticed a significant difference in performance between the two, and it ain’t good. The latency of IMS, is easily double (or more) that of the old UMA, plus the added “benefit” of no seamless handoffs.
You are looking at from the perspective of an individual consumer, and not from the perspective of an ISP’s network. Which is what the rules apply to.
In terms of directly competing services (non-realtime vs non-realtime), either the network operator’s service enjoys preferred priority, or it doesn’t.
In this case Comcast’s, non-realtime streaming service, has preferred priority over the others. Their service will NEVER have to worry about access to bandwidth, while the competitors will have to constantly struggle with it.
That is a business model issue, not a network access issue, and that is exactly what the net-neutrality rules are in place for. They are separate issues.
The basis of net-neutrality is very simply, “You cannot systematically place competitors at a disadvantage because you provide internet service”.
Of course Comcast wants to tie their streaming service tightly to there CATV service. They think that’s the loophole to specifically place their competitors at a disadvantage (or make themselves look better, however you want to look at it). If I have Comcast video service, but not Comcast’s internet service, shouldn’t Comcast’s streaming service have to use whatever my internet connection is?
Maybe in 25-30 years, but not anytime soon. The infrastructure and culture of the country is not setup for that. There are so many areas of the country that don’t have access to sufficient bandwidth for that to be a reality. The cable companies, for the most part, wrote those places off as unprofitable to build out, a long time ago.
But those people can get OTA broadcasts with an antenna, and satellite TV service. They can even get satellite internet service. What they cannot get, is bandwidth sufficient and consistent enough, to be their primary media delivery option. Satellite internet absolutely sucks.
RareSanity
@gene108:
That’s my point…it is that very ambiguity that Comcast is seeking to capitalize on. That ambiguity needs to be clarified.
I like the terms that Martin used…the line of demarcation is realtime vs non-realtime.
This is why the rules need to have ambiguity removed…right now.
Teejay
Sounds a lot like the Mea culpa we heard from the Maestro in testimony before Congress.
Brachiator
Saw this article last night and was going to post about it in an open thread.
Good to see that mistermix turned it into a front page discussion.
@Randy P:
Actually, there are a lot of libertarian leaning techies who believe that the Internets will be perfect if only the government keeps their hands off (most did, however, back the government blocking ATTs acquisition of TMobile).
However, I hope this article gets more of them to wake up to the corporate squeeze in this area.
This stuff gets complicated. The other thing that is happening is that the cable companies and Internet service providers are also preventing municipalities from being able to offer any kind of connectivity. The claim that this “hurts competition.” And then laugh their asses off.
And of course (not sure if someone has pointed this out, I’m posting on the fly again), the cable companies are stupidly trying to protect their monopoly on content, and are also insisting that people don’t want to cut the cord, but want to come home and watch stuff on their tvs via cable. In short, they are digging a trench to protect an old model.
Brachiator
Saw this article last night and was going to post about it in an open thread.
Good to see that mistermix turned it into a front page discussion.
@Randy P:
Actually, there are a lot of libertarian leaning techies who believe that the Internets will be perfect if only the government keeps their hands off (most did, however, back the government blocking ATTs acquisition of TMobile).
However, I hope this article gets more of them to wake up to the corporate squeeze in this area.
This stuff gets complicated. The other thing that is happening is that the cable companies and Internet service providers are also preventing municipalities from being able to offer any kind of connectivity. The claim that this “hurts competition.” And then laugh their asses off.
And of course (not sure if someone has pointed this out, I’m posting on the fly again), the cable companies are stupidly trying to protect their monopoly on content, and are also insisting that people don’t want to cut the cord, but want to come home and watch stuff on their tvs via cable. In short, they are digging a trench to protect an old model.
piratedan
still, what about those folks in the great unknown that are not close to any network at all that are begging for access to the web? Are we gonna see something like a government sponsored (be it national or local government) that will strive to get these people access, kinda reminiscent of the programs that electrified the south back in the teens thru the 30’s?
mclaren
Gimme a fuckin’ break. We’re not “slowly losing ground,” we’re lagging behind like a tricycle getting outpaced by F18s. In Britain they have 100 megabit broadband for $20 a month. Here in Shithole America, it’s 1 megabit for $100 a month but you have to buy expensive phone and cable TV service you don’t want to get the price that low.
In Japan, they have 1 gigabit fiber to the home for $20 a month. Here in Shithole America, we’re stuck back with fucking Bulgaria in terms of internet speed.
“Falling behind”?
Fuck-all, we’re done. Shithole America is back of the pack, we’re gone, we’re history, we’re never gonna catch up with the rest of the world’s internet speeds — as Robert X. Cringley pointed out long long looooooooooooong ago.
And as a result, all those new job-producing hi-tech businesses that depend on fast ubiquitous broadband internet? They’re being started up in Finland and France and China and Japan…not in Shithole America.
Game over. We’re done. Shithole America is a third world country, technologically speaking. We can’t even build the goddamn electroluminscent displays in our iPhones and iPads. We don’t have the technology.
Of course, since the giant monopoly corporations that own America’s internet service providers also own the Hollywood studios and the TV networks (do the words “TIME-WARNER” ring a bell? How about “Columbia-SONY”?), slow internet broadband is good news for America’s ISPs. It’s all part of the plan.
Sophist
These worthless fuckchops that populate libertarian thinktanks and other dens of ill repute are like the medieval theologians who would provide you with complex biblical exegesis proving that men MUST have one fewer rib than women while sitting 100 yards from an ossuary containing 10,000 arguments to the contrary. I am surprised this one let mere reality influence his thinking. Usually they seem to regard basing your theories on real world events instead of abstractions derived logically from first principles as cheating.