Ajit Pai lashes out at high profile net neutrality proponents

[MilwaukeeMike]

Why do the telecom giants (FCC) want to kill it so bad then? I am genuinely curious. If nothing really has changed with net neutrality and the same protections were already there before it, on the flip side they shouldn't really care if it exists or not either.

Is it that they don't like the constant government monitor that doesn't need a room full of lawyers to challenge them? The old way it seemed easier for them to squash the little guy with regulation? (I admit ignorance in this area, this is just speculation)

The argument should not be over simplified, but I know one thing: I don't trust big telecom. If they hate something as much as they seem to hate net nuetrality; injecting cronies into key positions (Pai and others), fighting this hard to repeal it. Why?

All very valid points. @MilwaukeeMike care to give us some answers that do not have their origin in political propaganda?

You have two responses that appear to come from direct experience with the Comcrap/Netflix melee of throttling and its effects on the end user.

Good points, so I looked it up. And it wasn't throttling. It was Netflix getting too big for Comcast to handle and Comcast didn't feel like making special arrangements in their networks for free. They specifically mention NN and point out why that wasn't a NN issue - go read it and scroll down to the section on NN. Basically - Netflix was using more data than Comcast was capable of delivering.

And that's how this all got started. Video streaming got big around 2013 and 2014 and Netflix was requiring more and more bandwidth until finally in 2014 we got the issue mentioned above. Comcast told Netflix 'If you want to use all this bandwidth, you have to pay us to do all the work to expand- since it's only for your service.' Netflix said 'No way - you're supposed to provide your customers with fast internet.' And they had a little standoff. In the end 2 things happened
1) Netflix paid Comcast some money to give them special treatment (not NN at all) because Netflix is 100% download and Comcast was allocating ports for uploads (which isn't needed for Netflix) and
2) Netflix and Google (aka Youtube - who also streams a lot of data and is the #1 tech democratic donor) took their lobbyists to Washington and told Obama about it. Obama tried to make ISPs (like Comcast) fall in line, but his orders got stopped in the courts because the govt isn't allowed to just tell people and companies how to run their business.
3) Then they had a great idea - if we classify the internet as a Utility then the rules about having to provide everyone equal service will automatically apply. We'll sell it as Net Neutrality and it'll sound great! And that's what they did. Just like when Obamacare got sued they called the penalty for not buying insurance a 'tax'. Change the way it's classified and you can change the rules for it.

Results: Netflix and Google and other content provide don't have to pay to make sure their stuff gets through as fast as everyone else's. It's like mailing a semi-truck full of stuff for the price of a small flat-rate box because there's a rule that says 'Everything ships for $10'
ISPs get the shaft and have to make sure everything runs equally. Does it matter for your bill? Probably not - Netflix is cheap, but internet is expensive. The problem is Netflix has competition and Comcast doesn't. Making it more expensive to be an ISP doesn't help more companies get into the business.

Note though - None of the NN rules started because of throttling. It was a giant bottle of snake-oil: a solution to a problem we didn't have because the tech lobbyists had Obama's ear. There's no reason for it. If you want to say you don't care and you're glad the internet is regulated as a 1930's phone company - that's fine. But know that Obama sold it dishonestly, and it has no benefit. (I googled 'Benefits of Title II' and I got hits for social security. I googled 'effects of title II' and I got arguments about whether NN is harmful or not'. Shouldn't there be some benefits out there?)

 

[Evernessince]

Sorry - I stopped reading when you blamed Obamacare on the republicans. A total of 0 republicans voted for Obamacare. They even sued to stop the individual mandate - it went to the Supreme Court and it was barely passed there and only because they called it a tax.

Link me some news stories about the ISPs abusing power. Go find a lawsuit about a small company getting their service throttled and I'll concede this argument.

And you're right - there are fewer competing companies, but it's not because of deregulation (Obama did NOT spend the last 8 years deregulating anything!) it's because of TOO MUCH regulation. Look at what Dodd-Frank did to small banks. Compliance with regulation costs money and small players can't afford it. When you have to hire lawyers and accountants to comply with a law those people aren't making money for your business. And it's very hard to start a business when you have to hire a compliance staff. You agree that a lightly regulated internet helped it form into what it is today - why do you contradict that idea in the same paragraph?

When a company has to comply with a new regulation it costs them money. They have to replace old equipment, hire new staff, or go through a bunch of red tape that slows them down. Regulation always has a cost - it's an understood trade-off that you will slow down growth for increased safety, environmental protection etc. The point with NN is that there is no upside - we aren't getting any benefit from it. It's all just a paranoid idea that the big bad internet companies will take advantage of you. It hasn't happened.

does not change the fact that there were hundred of republican amendments

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...utierrez-says-hundreds-republican-amendments-
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/21/us/health-care-amendments.html
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-th...y-Republicans-who-then-refused-to-vote-for-it

"The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, adopted 161 amendments to its health care bill that were authored by Republicans"

Wow, if not voting for a bill you yourself amended doesn't say sabotage, I don't know what does.

"When a company has to comply with a new regulation it costs them money."

Wrong, just like my small business does not have to comply with a large majority because they are not aimed at me. But you'd know all about that right? Not all regulations cost money as well. Regulations like "don't throttle traffic" costs zero money, it just involves not being a ****.

"Look at what Dodd-Frank did to small banks"

ehm

"Instead, responsibilities stemming from conservative money laundering prevention laws have added regulatory pressure, he said.

"The anti-money laundering that's aiming at drug smuggling and terrorists. Know your customer, all those things. You have to report if people are taking out more than $10,000 at a time. Those have nothing to do with our bill," Frank said.

The former lawmaker said the Patriot Act and anti-money laundering rules added to the Bank Secrecy Act, both introduced in Congress by Republicans, were the root causes of regulatory pressure on small banks."

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/28/reg...nks-werent-from-dodd-frank-lawmaker-says.html

Once again, this is the case of republicans screwing things up and then pointing the finger. In fact the only reason Dodd-Frank exists is because republicans repealed bank and financial institution regulations that lead to the bank bailout. You wouldn't be here complaining in the first place if they hadn't repealed previous bipartisan bank regulations.

"You agree that a lightly regulated internet helped it form into what it is today - why do you contradict that idea in the same paragraph"

Because, given the ever increasing prices, data theft, and lack of competition in the market it is becoming required. Just the ISPs need to be regulated right now because it's most important that the pipe carrying the data to your house remains just a pipe.

 

[Darth Shiv]

LOL, yep all the tech companies are playing the victim. Oh, except for conveniently Comcast, Verizon, and Charter who just so happen to give his campaigns huge sums of cash. He should have just stopped at saying Comcast will do the right thing with no regulation, obvious lie is obvious.



Wrong, the Obama administration (through the FCC) passed NN because big ISPs were starting to abuse their powers. Past success does not equal future success, the internet is a hell lot different than when Clinton was in office, obviously. And stop pulling the Ajit Pai bullshit card, NN was the only significant internet regulation passed, it is very light touch (contrary to what Pai says) and it doesn't go nearly far enough. Bill Clinton didn't have to deal with facebook taking Russian money to swing an election nor did he have to deal with the massive regional monopolies we have today. Fact: There are less competing companies in nearly every sector in America thanks to continued deregulation and prices in these product categories have only continued to go up. Deregulation doesn't encourage investment, it encourages companies to screw over consumers.

"If the majority of America wanted preemptive regulation they would have elected Bernie. "

If you think this was Bernie's platform you seriously have no idea what you are talking about. His platform was much more about fixing the current system than punishing possible offenders. You know, like white collar crime, which has been steadily rising in the US since the 1980s.

"The majority of American's also wanted Obamacare - until they got a taste of it."

I think you mean "until the republican's ****ed it up". FYI the individual mandate was added by the republicans. It's their playbook and they are trying to do the exact same thing with the tax bill they are currently proposing as they did during the bush era. Ignore the deficit during their term to get rich people tax breaks > Blame the democrats during their control > Get control of the government again by passing their own failure as the democrat's. Typical short term memory Americans fall right for it.

" If a company were to block a website it would be a violation of the 1st Amendment. You could make the same legal argument for throttling. Anti-competitive behavior is already against the law."

LOL, this is so misinformed it's not even funny. The 1st amendment does not apply to private entities so they are well within their rights to block a website for whatever reason, even political ones. Your first Amendment rights only apply as it pertains to the government. The government is the only body required here to not block your freedom of speech, no company or nobody else is.

" Anti-competitive behavior is already against the law."

Is it? Because in America 99% of the time they get away with it and at best get a slap on the hand with a minuscule fine. All the while, the EU is actually suing companies like Microsoft and Intel. Not to mention, the law has yet to be updated comprehensively for the digital era, many of the rules we are using were written a long time ago.

Sorry - I stopped reading when you blamed Obamacare on the republicans. A total of 0 republicans voted for Obamacare. They even sued to stop the individual mandate - it went to the Supreme Court and it was barely passed there and only because they called it a tax.

Link me some news stories about the ISPs abusing power. Go find a lawsuit about a small company getting their service throttled and I'll concede this argument.

And you're right - there are fewer competing companies, but it's not because of deregulation (Obama did NOT spend the last 8 years deregulating anything!) it's because of TOO MUCH regulation. Look at what Dodd-Frank did to small banks. Compliance with regulation costs money and small players can't afford it. When you have to hire lawyers and accountants to comply with a law those people aren't making money for your business. And it's very hard to start a business when you have to hire a compliance staff. You agree that a lightly regulated internet helped it form into what it is today - why do you contradict that idea in the same paragraph?

When a company has to comply with a new regulation it costs them money. They have to replace old equipment, hire new staff, or go through a bunch of red tape that slows them down. Regulation always has a cost - it's an understood trade-off that you will slow down growth for increased safety, environmental protection etc. The point with NN is that there is no upside - we aren't getting any benefit from it. It's all just a paranoid idea that the big bad internet companies will take advantage of you. It hasn't happened.

Regulation costs are inherent in our current political system. The problem is LAWYERS are involved designing the regulations. They have a vested interest in having a hundred checkboxes which implies "they did their job" rather than a focus on something practical and easy to understand. Their whole profession makes a living out of laws being complicated.

So there are two things here.

1) There is a BIG difference between regulation and GOOD regulation.

2) There is a BIG difference between what Obamacare should have been and what it is. That does NOT detract from the goal which is more coverage. Republicans have made it as difficult as possible to even achieve the current outcome. That is why Republicans are blamed. Obamacare isn't nearly close to what it should have been. Many other western countries have universal healthcare AND much lower health costs per capita. Because the US system is completely broken by many many things. One thing is the US public is gouged by unreasonable health costs. Another is lack of regulation to protect vulnerable citizens. The list goes on. It is nowhere near a simple fix because the US system is a complete clusterf%&k. Both health and political in general.

 

[Rob Roy]

Good points, so I looked it up. And it wasn't throttling. It was Netflix getting too big for Comcast to handle and Comcast didn't feel like making special arrangements in their networks for free. They specifically mention NN and point out why that wasn't a NN issue - go read it and scroll down to the section on NN. Basically - Netflix was using more data than Comcast was capable of delivering.

And that's how this all got started. Video streaming got big around 2013 and 2014 and Netflix was requiring more and more bandwidth until finally in 2014 we got the issue mentioned above. Comcast told Netflix 'If you want to use all this bandwidth, you have to pay us to do all the work to expand- since it's only for your service.' Netflix said 'No way - you're supposed to provide your customers with fast internet.' And they had a little standoff. In the end 2 things happened
1) Netflix paid Comcast some money to give them special treatment (not NN at all) because Netflix is 100% download and Comcast was allocating ports for uploads (which isn't needed for Netflix) and
2) Netflix and Google (aka Youtube - who also streams a lot of data and is the #1 tech democratic donor) took their lobbyists to Washington and told Obama about it. Obama tried to make ISPs (like Comcast) fall in line, but his orders got stopped in the courts because the govt isn't allowed to just tell people and companies how to run their business.
3) Then they had a great idea - if we classify the internet as a Utility then the rules about having to provide everyone equal service will automatically apply. We'll sell it as Net Neutrality and it'll sound great! And that's what they did. Just like when Obamacare got sued they called the penalty for not buying insurance a 'tax'. Change the way it's classified and you can change the rules for it.

Results: Netflix and Google and other content provide don't have to pay to make sure their stuff gets through as fast as everyone else's. It's like mailing a semi-truck full of stuff for the price of a small flat-rate box because there's a rule that says 'Everything ships for $10'
ISPs get the shaft and have to make sure everything runs equally. Does it matter for your bill? Probably not - Netflix is cheap, but internet is expensive. The problem is Netflix has competition and Comcast doesn't. Making it more expensive to be an ISP doesn't help more companies get into the business.

Note though - None of the NN rules started because of throttling. It was a giant bottle of snake-oil: a solution to a problem we didn't have because the tech lobbyists had Obama's ear. There's no reason for it. If you want to say you don't care and you're glad the internet is regulated as a 1930's phone company - that's fine. But know that Obama sold it dishonestly, and it has no benefit. (I googled 'Benefits of Title II' and I got hits for social security. I googled 'effects of title II' and I got arguments about whether NN is harmful or not'. Shouldn't there be some benefits out there?)

WHAT?? Not throttling? Then how was it fixed within a 24 hour period?? As I stated it was done at the peer level. It was clearly a case of throttling to be fixed that fast. You cannot ignore or explain away how you can fix something as bandwidth limitation in a 24 hour period. You can however plug into unused ports on fiber channels in a 24 hour period. I pay a fee to Comcast to get what I want at a speed that I paid for. They did not provide the service that I paid for. I could access other sites at the speed advertize, so there is no bandwidth limitation until I went to NetFlix. That is the definition of throttling.

 

[Evernessince]

Regulation costs are inherent in our current political system. The problem is LAWYERS are involved designing the regulations. They have a vested interest in having a hundred checkboxes which implies "they did their job" rather than a focus on something practical and easy to understand. Their whole profession makes a living out of laws being complicated.

So there are two things here.

1) There is a BIG difference between regulation and GOOD regulation.

2) There is a BIG difference between what Obamacare should have been and what it is. That does NOT detract from the goal which is more coverage. Republicans have made it as difficult as possible to even achieve the current outcome. That is why Republicans are blamed. Obamacare isn't nearly close to what it should have been. Many other western countries have universal healthcare AND much lower health costs per capita. Because the US system is completely broken by many many things. One thing is the US public is gouged by unreasonable health costs. Another is lack of regulation to protect vulnerable citizens. The list goes on. It is nowhere near a simple fix because the US system is a complete clusterf%&k. Both health and political in general.

I really think the biggest problem with American politics is how loose regulations are regarding lobbying and giving money for politician purposes and recent campaign deregulation hasn't helped. You can't expect politicians to act for the interest of the public when the system is set up in a way where in order to campaign you need big money and that only way to get that is to promise some big company that you are going to do them favors. So in order to even serve the public, you essentially have to swear to serve some company first. This is one of the reasons Trump voters liked Trump so much, they thought he doesn't need the money. Well unfortunately, Trump didn't become rich because he's a brilliant person, he did so by scamming people for the most part and a person like that is never satisfied with the amount of cash in their pockets.

 

[Darth Shiv]

I really think the biggest problem with American politics is how loose regulations are regarding lobbying and giving money for politician purposes and recent campaign deregulation hasn't helped. You can't expect politicians to act for the interest of the public when the system is set up in a way where in order to campaign you need big money and that only way to get that is to promise some big company that you are going to do them favors. So in order to even serve the public, you essentially have to swear to serve some company first. This is one of the reasons Trump voters liked Trump so much, they thought he doesn't need the money. Well unfortunately, Trump didn't become rich because he's a brilliant person, he did so by scamming people for the most part and a person like that is never satisfied with the amount of cash in their pockets.

Yep it is stacked towards the very very rich corporations and in general, like you say with Trump, taking advantage of people. Facebook is a classic example of how to make money by being a manipulating grub - just pointing out the IT sector is far from free of guilt here.

In my time in the US, as an Australian, I'm staggered by how poorly the lower class is treated here and how culturally it's ok to take advantage of someone for money. The way things are worded like in advertising just reeks of lawyer-speak and technicality cop-outs. It's really startling.

You can see why people with a lot of money are so happy for the status quo and how easily it is to make people fear "socialist" policies like higher taxation, universal healthcare, free education and so on.

Ps disclaimer - NONE of those policies I advocate would net benefit me - lower taxes I'd make a LOT more money. I believe in them as they would make society a better place and have seen them in practice first hand.

 

[Evernessince]

Yep it is stacked towards the very very rich corporations and in general, like you say with Trump, taking advantage of people. Facebook is a classic example of how to make money by being a manipulating grub - just pointing out the IT sector is far from free of guilt here.

Yeah, the IT sector has been particularly disappointing. What used to be a group of companies that contrasted the corporate landscape, have now assimilated into the capitalist slimeball. We couldn't even get Facebook to swear they wouldn't take anymore Russian money that's being used to spread propaganda in recent congressional hearings. They admit to the problem but they like the money too much and because there's no regulations preventing it, American's are completely at the mercy of foreign propaganda and there's nothing our government is doing to fight back the obvious examples.

 

[dogofwars]

He reiterated multiple times how his proposal merely goes back to pre-2015 light regulation — a time when the internet was not suffering any of the “absurd” injustices that opponents are suggesting will come with his plan

This. We don't need to regulate something that doesn't need regulating. The internet in America has been a rocket of success for the last 20 years. e-commerce, business, social media etc has transformed our lives. Why on earth would you want the govt to regulate that kind of success? To promote some idea of fairness that isn't being threatened?!

I cannot believe this guy. The majority of Americans want the net neutrality rules issued by the FCC under the Obama administration, but he is clearly saying FU to that majority. Democracy be damned.

The majority of American's also wanted Obamacare - until they got a taste of it. The big difference in the analogy though is that we've always had net neutrality. If a company were to block a website it would be a violation of the 1st Amendment. You could make the same legal argument for throttling. Anti-competitive behavior is already against the law.

The fact is - the Obama administration passed a bunch of regulations to fix a problem that didn't exist and told us it was for our own good and the fairness of everyone to keep the internet open and free. The catchy term coined for all that fairness is 'net neutrality' Brilliant marketing - even better than 'If you like your plan, you can keep it.' Obama tried to control it so he could tax it.

If the majority of America wanted preemptive regulation they would have elected Bernie.

Anyway - how can you argue with the internet's success? It's been such a complete success because of the lenient rules put in place by Bill Clinton with the telecommunications act of 1996.

Interesting that this comment was instantly debunked as containing a link to yet another paid shill. That this guy can consider the internet in the US a complete success is nothing short of amazing especially since internet in the US is basically a monopoly. The idea seems akin to calling Kim Jong Il a complete success in North Korea.

Please feel free to consider the rest of the comments in this thread as a charitable contribution to your education.

Hey Kim Jong Il is a great success LOL

He was the best golfer the world has ever seen

In 1994, Pyongyang media reported that Kim Jong-il shot an amazing 11 holes-in-one to achieve an unprecedented 38-under-par game on a regulation 18-hole golf course - on his first try at golf.

 

[Avenger001]

The internet has changed considerably and to the point were certain things need to be changed in order to ADAPT

- Internet has gotten larger- More people are using it -Powerful tool to connect people - Social media
- New businesses - A lot of streaming - A lot more online Gaming - Online only content

Problem for large ISP already making too much money:
Hardly any competition so instead of upgrading the network lets now charge content providers a toll -Ridiculous

Who is going to pay for the content providers extra expense...hmmmmm

1) Tittle 2 key benefit = FCC Ability to provide "CONSUMER PROTECTIONS" AGAINST "NEW" PREDATORY BUSINESS PRACTICES.... you know, the rare aim to protect the rights of consumers.

Product: Net Neutrality Law

hypothetical harms they say = Well lets remove glass Steagall(wonder what happened) - Repeal of arbitration rules- Dodd frank - List goes on.......

2) Network + Increased load + overload due to incompetence = ADAPT and UPGRADE YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE or stop taking on customers - Stop whining about your monopoly

3) Open up competition - This has absolutely nothing to do with tittle 2 or net neutrality - You should go speak to your local\state representative about lack of competition(Their donor list may already explain)

We all know that the ISP had started to introduce their own streaming services and sites like Netflix was an issue....

- It's in no way the content providers fault that your networks can't handle the load
- Its not their responsibility to manage the ISP'S network\users


Let's be clear; The FCC under the liberals had originally planned to listen to their donors and screw everyone until people rose up .

The conservatives are worst than the liberals when it comes to catering to donors and will do it while sitting on your face


The conservatives almost got away with this bullshit in Canada. People fought and ended up with this instead: https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/internet/diff.htm

 

[Evernessince]

The internet has changed considerably and to the point were certain things need to be changed in order to ADAPT

- Internet has gotten larger- More people are using it -Powerful tool to connect people - Social media
- New businesses - A lot of streaming - A lot more online Gaming - Online only content

Problem for large ISP already making too much money:
Hardly any competition so instead of upgrading the network lets now charge content providers a toll -Ridiculous

Who is going to pay for the content providers extra expense...hmmmmm

1) Tittle 2 key benefit = FCC Ability to provide "CONSUMER PROTECTIONS" AGAINST "NEW" PREDATORY BUSINESS PRACTICES.... you know, the rare aim to protect the rights of consumers.

Product: Net Neutrality Law

hypothetical harms they say = Well lets remove glass Steagall(wonder what happened) - Repeal of arbitration rules- Dodd frank - List goes on.......

2) Network + Increased load + overload due to incompetence = ADAPT and UPGRADE YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE or stop taking on customers - Stop whining about your monopoly

3) Open up competition - This has absolutely nothing to do with tittle 2 or net neutrality - You should go speak to your local\state representative about lack of competition(Their donor list may already explain)

We all know that the ISP had started to introduce their own streaming services and sites like Netflix was an issue....

- It's in no way the content providers fault that your networks can't handle the load
- Its not their responsibility to manage the ISP'S network\users


Let's be clear; The FCC under the liberals had originally planned to listen to their donors and screw everyone until people rose up .

The conservatives are worst than the liberals when it comes to catering to donors and will do it while sitting on your face


The conservatives almost got away with this bullshit in Canada. People fought and ended up with this instead: https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/internet/diff.htm

The funny part about point 2 is that many times, these companies get massive handouts to build their networks from the public and even fail to use that handout money to do so. Verizon has been in trouble in New York multiple times now for failing build their network enough after taking lots of public money.

When something as necessary as the internet falls into the hands of a few large companies whom have no competition in their local areas, it absolutely needs to be regulated. Their shareholders would be pissed if they didn't gouge their customers for every cent possible. That's exactly why these people invested in these companies, to make money.

 

[avioza]

The problem is Netflix has competition and Comcast doesn't. Making it more expensive to be an ISP doesn't help more companies get into the business.

In my area a Rural electric company in upstate New York is running Gigabit internet along their lines to surprisingly remote areas. It will cost $45/mo for Gigabit internet and they are projected to pay off the cost of this in less than three years based off polled subscription numbers.

I acknowledge that this is projected outcome on paper though the project is already underway. My point is if a small rural company can cover their costs that quickly, I think the growing pains/costs of larger ISP's are exaggerated.

I work with two of the board members, so if there are major problems with this project I will eat crow in a future thread and post about it. These guys did their homework though.

Big telecom doesn't want competition, they hate challengers (Cities and towns that want to start a municipal service) to their massive revenue stream and get legislation passed to prevent it. A couple examples from ArsTechnica [1] [2].

ISP's have been taking advantage of consumers for a long time and we have grown accustomed to it as the norm. I don't feel bad for them when they are intentionally stifling competition and now are whining because they can't extort more money from content providers the cost of which eventually is dumped on the consumer.

1. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...-stop-regional-fiber-networks-from-expanding/
2. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...-won-limits-on-public-broadband-in-20-states/

 

[Joe Blow]

Net Neutrality unpopular? According to who? We had net neutrality before Obama did his B.S. In the Orwellian terms of government, the 'new' net neutrality was in fact the opposite. It allowed Big Data and Big Internet to block and censor the little people, while getting away with it. Obama also made the move to give control of the Internet away to the scumbag owned United Nations.

Sorry, we're not falling for the fake news.

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

WHAT?? Not throttling? Then how was it fixed within a 24 hour period?? As I stated it was done at the peer level. It was clearly a case of throttling to be fixed that fast. You cannot ignore or explain away how you can fix something as bandwidth limitation in a 24 hour period. You can however plug into unused ports on fiber channels in a 24 hour period. I pay a fee to Comcast to get what I want at a speed that I paid for. They did not provide the service that I paid for. I could access other sites at the speed advertize, so there is no bandwidth limitation until I went to NetFlix. That is the definition of throttling.

So if Comcast gives the exact same lines to everyone, but 5 million people try to stream Season 2 of Orange is the New Black on the first night all at once from the same lines coming from Netflix and it slows it down - that means Comcast is throttling Netflix?!

By that logic when there's rush hour traffic and everyone is driving slow it's because the city decided to make the speed limit on the freeway 15 MPH for 2 hours every morning and afternoon.

So how did they fix it without creating more bandwidth then? By allowing traffic to use more ports... or in my rush hour example, it would be like allowing people to drive the same direction on both sides of the road. Since no one sends anything to Netflix besides a browser request for the page - this worked fine - easily fixed in 24 hours. Not throttling. Although you are free to call it whatever you like.

 

[flyboydale54]

No one person should possesses this kind of power of Dismantling Net Neutrality! In fact this person (Pai) within the FCC needs to be fired.

 

[Rob Roy]

So if Comcast gives the exact same lines to everyone, but 5 million people try to stream Season 2 of Orange is the New Black on the first night all at once from the same lines coming from Netflix and it slows it down - that means Comcast is throttling Netflix?!

By that logic when there's rush hour traffic and everyone is driving slow it's because the city decided to make the speed limit on the freeway 15 MPH for 2 hours every morning and afternoon.

So how did they fix it without creating more bandwidth then? By allowing traffic to use more ports... or in my rush hour example, it would be like allowing people to drive the same direction on both sides of the road. Since no one sends anything to Netflix besides a browser request for the page - this worked fine - easily fixed in 24 hours. Not throttling. Although you are free to call it whatever you like.

You forgot to say, plugging in the ports that they had used before. There was no network slowdown until negotiations were under way, during negotiations ports were unplugged at the peer level. Putting pressure on Netflix to negotiate. That is throttling, no problem until they were talking, problems while they were talking, no problems after talking. BTW if it was such an easy fix, why did it take three months to fix, and the fix was applied in multiple markets, in a matter of hours. The infrastructure was in place and not used, that is like your roads crews blocking off some lanes that cause a traffic problem. For it not to be throttling, you would have to add infrastructure, that was not done.

One major problem with your example. "So if Comcast gives the exact same lines to everyone, but 5 million people try to stream Season 2 of Orange is the New Black on the first night all at once from the same lines coming from Netflix and it slows it down - that means Comcast is throttling Netflix?!

The slowdown was a 24/7 problem for months, not a one time bandhog event. So yes Comcast was throttling NetFlix.
https://technical.ly/philly/2014/05...-speeds-changed-comcast-deal-comcast-roundup/