Net neutrality update

[Undertoad]

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

*crickets*

~

In the past, there were always times where you could say, "If only everybody had 10 times the bandwidth, we'd be able to give them X". In 1995 we said that about images on web pages. In 1998 we said that about large images on web pages. In 2003 we said that about streaming audio. In 2010 we said that about streaming video. But in 2019, we don't say that about anything in particular.

Funny thing, innovation. Doesn't always go in a straight line.

~

Think about it, porn always leads the way in communication technologies. But there is nobody (AFAIK) offering any porn that's more bandwidth-consuming than your average Netflix.

My friend has gigabit internet from FIOS, he actually HAS 10 times the bandwidth than we do. Where is his porn app that uses all that bandwidth? There isn't one! What does he do with his gigabit service? Same thing we all do, and he uses the same amount of bandwidth doing it.

[Clodfobble]

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?

*crickets*

~

In the past, there were always times where you could say, "If only everybody had 10 times the bandwidth, we'd be able to give them X". In 1995 we said that about images on web pages. In 1998 we said that about large images on web pages. In 2003 we said that about streaming audio. In 2010 we said that about streaming video. But in 2019, we don't say that about anything in particular.

I hear ya. I just wish my streaming videos wouldn't auto-drop in quality every couple of minutes while the buffering catches back up. It goes blurry for 10 seconds at a time and it's annoying. First world problems, I know.

[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.

[Happy Monkey]

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

[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

[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?

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.)