Net neutrality update

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

They want to stream games now, but the main problem there is latency, not bandwidth.

It makes sense. Gamers pay a premium of $500-$1000 to have a PC that can render the 3D video needed to play top games. If you could share the rendering hardware over many gamers, you could turn it into an affordable thing.

You can solve the latency problem partly by giving gaming packets priority, or routing them differently. Guarantee they arrive first, as opposed to all the applications that are bursty and don't mind waiting 100ms for their packet to arrive.

But net neutrality prevents that

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Hey, those countries that have more bandwidth than us, what are they doing with it that we aren't doing with ours?

Ignored: who are now world leaders in internet devices? China is now the world leader in 5G. Korea is now the world leader in mobile phones. Industries that made America great are being surrendered by business school graduates (ie Trump).

What did UT says about all this? crickets. UT please learn facts before posting. You made this same mistake with Saddam's WMDs.

Using UTs logic, we don't need no sticking internet. 2 Mb DSL was always sufficient even to do Netflix products in the 1980s. Obsolete technologies are just fine using UT's logic. UT must ignore that major fault in his reasoning.

Let's stifle innovation by subverting free market competition - Republican party propaganda. UT says that is also good. Net neutrality that finally made the internet possible and popular (after 15 years of being stifled) must be destroyed. Net neutrality that resulted in sufficient bandwidth for everyone is somehow now wrong. More UT reasoning.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

They want to stream games now, but the main problem there is latency, not bandwidth.

Latency exists (in part) due to restricted bandwidth.

You can have 100 Mb connection from a CMTS to your computer. Does not matter if a best connection to that sever must take alternative routes to the CMTS due to insufficient bandwidth.

Why are so many just beginning to see 100 Mb? Because it was standard 10 years ago in other nations.

[Undertoad]

why would they spend millions fighting this restriction if they weren't going to use it? Just to have it as an option? Just because they fight any and all regulation?

Basically what the companies want to do is to develop premium services not permitted under the rules. Gaming, online surgery, driving, these have different networking needs and can't be handled neutrally.

Here is a set of 5 arguments in favor of ending net neutrality. (There is a part 2 page linked at the bottom, with the arguments against it.)

The pro argument is never aired. We have not heard the argument stated properly. The media should help us out here, but it is broken by an activism bubble and doesn't even know what the pro argument are.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Basically what the companies want to do is to develop premium services not permitted under the rules.

So they can spend less money on the backbone and spend more money on skyscrapers, TV network, movie studios and theme parks, mobile phone companies, satellite companies, and other investments.

Then charge priority price increases because capital upgrades were withheld from the backbone. Why, in the early days, was the backbone so robust? Because companies had to provide more than sufficient bandband for lower prices. Net neutrality. Free market competition existed - created by net neutrality.

Why were we using 33K and 56K modems over a decade after 2 Mb service was possible? No net neutrality. Companies could even charge a premium for inferior priority service (ISDN, ATM, Sonet). UT wants to go back to those days because corporate spin says that was good.

UT's belief in priority surcharges says free market competition is bad. He even loves it that most everyone only has two internet providers - if they have any at all. He also loves the duopoly that created massive price increases for cable TV and internet. UT actually approves of American now falling to number 20 in the world. He ignored that reality with more corporate lies.

You don't need more internet bandwdith. You cannot be trusted with world standard speeds.

Let's make it even worse. Let's get rid of net neutrality so that Netflix, et al must pay for more Comcast Skyscrapers. Net neutrality means they must, instead, invest that money into their network.

They would have to invest in new innvotions? Investing and upgrading their networks (due to free market competition) would only hurt profits. OMG!

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The pro argument is never aired. We have not heard the argument stated properly. The media should help us out here, but it is broken by an activism bubble and doesn't even know what the pro argument are.

Thanks UT, that's really interesting. You're right, I don't think I'm alone in being unaware of those arguments. I'm not sure I agree with them but I'm glad to be aware of them.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

It makes sense. Gamers pay a premium of $500-$1000 to have a PC that can render the 3D video needed to play top games. If you could share the rendering hardware over many gamers, you could turn it into an affordable thing.

You can solve the latency problem partly by giving gaming packets priority, or routing them differently. Guarantee they arrive first, as opposed to all the applications that are bursty and don't mind waiting 100ms for their packet to arrive.

But net neutrality prevents that

ORLY?

Like net neutrality poisons the other, even more ubiquitous latency-sensitive IP traffic, VOIP?

[Undertoad]

VoIP is improved by prioritization and on private networks it often is. At the moment VoIP takes up 1/1000th of a UHD video stream so its issues are old news.

Gaming is a full HD video stream (in the case of the app I'm talking about) and more latency sensitive than VoIP. If VoIP encounters network jitter it sounds bad for a moment. If gamers encounter network jitter they die.

[BigV]

One gamer's death is another gamer's "Suck it!"

How are they going to be able to attribute it to network jitter?

Real question, not baiting you.

[Undertoad]

In a lot of games, you can actually see network lag visibly. You make moves and the server doesn't pick them up quickly, so it fails to correctly calculate your angle and position, and the game has to adjust for it. Your car or your character goes a little herky-jerky.

Gamers and their communities go into wild details with these things. Every microsecond counts in twitchy games. In the game I follow (PUBG), players determined that video frame rates were affecting the fire rates of automatic weapons. Like, if you had a good video card and got 80 frames per second, you had a tiny advantage over the person getting 60 frames per second. The game was doing something like waiting for the next frame to draw before firing the next round, something like that, so the difference between 1/60th of a second and 1/80th of a second became meaningful.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

VoIP is improved by prioritization ...

That is only necessary when bandwidth is restricted - because someone was not investing in the infrastructure.

Latency is even a problem on highways when roads are not built or expanded.

Bandwidth is the solution. Priority is to mask and charge more because bandwidth was not increased.

[Undertoad]

Goes both ways, Sparky: congestion can be avoided and mitigated by traffic shaping.

Your solution is to make every road a highway. That would mostly work -- but is wildly expensive. It's a child's solution: gosh, just make everything bigger and faster! And if you had unlimited resources, maybe you would.

My real world solution is to install ramp meters, high-speed passing lanes, and bus lanes. This allows the existing highway to carry more people, with rules that help both the fast cars and the slow buses.

(And the slow busses.)

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Your solution is to make every road a highway. That would mostly work -- but is wildly expensive.

Total nonsense. That is what net neutrality cured. It provided consumers with 2 Mb data access when everyone was limited to about 0.04 Mb. And when that 2 Mb technology was available 15 years earlier. Net neutrality mades highways instead of stop lights.

You have again posted the myth that we debunked many times previously. Death of distance. Cost of a data transmission is same from the Cellar to NYC as it is from the Cellar to Sydney Australia. Highways also mean greater reliability. It means everything is not at 100% - repeatedly suffering from latency - faults and other problems in normal operation do not cause congestion.

Once upon a time, AT&T used your reasoning. And so Mothers Day became a serious network problem. What fixed it? Free market competition. Competitors were permitted. They concentrated on the product (ie network) rather than profits. Therefore competitors were making profits with superior service (ie Sprint's quality so clean that one could hear a pin drop). And AT&T kept selling off divisions to claim that as profits. And even kept wasting money upgrading microwave towers.

Things got so bad in AT&T that their CFO, one day, leaned over to Sandy Weil (a board member) and whispered, "We cannot meet our short term debt obligations." Rather then invest in their network, AT&T had so cost controlled everything that they could not meet payments on their three month bonds.

No problem. They were running their network at near 100% capacity most often. So spread sheets said profits had been maximized. Purpose was profits; not the product.

Yes, that happens when one uses your cost control reasoning rather than invest in the product. Net neutrality means a network that always has sufficient bandwidth. And therefore no or minimal latency. Customers paid less money to companies that were profitable.

That was until Michael Powell, et al, attacked net neutrality so that everyone can only have two internet providers. Powell's, et al reasoning - only two companies will be more profitable. And so
TV cable that once was $8 per month is somewhere well above $50 - and rising to pay for skyscrapers, broadcast networks, and theme parks.

Throttling (also called priority pricing) is what business school graduates love. Minimal network that runs at 100% and does not provide service to everyone every time. Then both consumers and content providers can be surcharged. Prices go up - because the purpose is only profits.

Satellites do something similar for completely different reasons. Priority service is not based in using everything 100% of the time. Priority is an insurance policy - for reliability - to improve the product - not profits.

A Bastille Day event being a classic example. AT&T was the only satellite operator that did not configure their birds for a major sun spot emission. Therefore both AT&T satellites were damaged.

Certain customers (ie broadcasters) sign agreements on other birds. So networks like PBS and CBS moved their network to other birds. Service remains reliable. Priority used as insurance. Not for profits.

Some less priority systems (ie ATM networks) temporarily surrendered their transponders. Priority is not for normal operation. Priority is for the rare or catastrophic event. An insurance policy or a futures contract. Profits are not the purpose - as UT's reasoning is based. The product - in this case reliability - is the only reason for responsible priority scheduling. And that only works when networks (ie highways) have enough bandwidth (roads and bridges) so that latency also is not a normal event.

As a result, some hedge funds hold transponders (that do nothing most of the time) as an insurance policy should another bird fail. IOW excess capacity (not priority pricing to maximize profits) is held in reserve to address the product - to make that network more reliable.

Priority charging, as promoted by UT, is how to increase profits without investing capital in the product. Just another way to get more money to buy theme parks and skyscrapers.

Even latency is only a problem when cost controls have diminished available bandwidth. It does not happen with net neutrality and the resulting free market competition.

It always comes down to this question. What is the purpose of a company: its profits or its product? UT advocates increases profits. Consumers then pay more to have same service. Then Comcast can buy more food companies.

[Undertoad]

My yawn is now the size of the Grand Canyon, but:

Cost of a data transmission is same from the Cellar to NYC as it is from the Cellar to Sydney Australia

No variable costs. But there are the fixed costs of the undersea cables you need to lay, in order to guarantee low latency, via always having an overage of bandwidth.

Each one is hundreds of millions of dollars, and you need multiple of them to every connection point on every continent, and you need to build enough bandwidth into them for a world that will require more and more bandwidth. Requiring you to lay new cables... they estimate, every 25 years.

Because the bandwidth requirements increase exponentially. The people require more bandwidth, but there are also more connected people. Each cable you lay to one continent increases the bandwidth requirements to every other continent.

Meanwhile, The Cellar is now located on a virtual server in Newark. Cellar to NYC is over super high-capacity circuits and it's just across the Hudson. You may see a ping of 3-4ms. Any Manhattan dwellars here?

[sexobon]

That was not only in the grey on the improved pyramid, the yawn has it bordering on white. We'll call it: gris supérieur.