Ed Vaizey - (Communications Minister) Against net neutrality and is for ISP traffic favouring

[Dolph]

I suppose that depends on how you regard the backend of the Internet, and whether it should be unfettered infrastructure or subject to free market intervention.

Given that this is all prompted by media cartels, I'm not sure how that fits into the free market ideals.

Enforced net neutrality is hardly a free market ideal. Of course, there are some issues, specifically because we restrict the expansion of infrastructure, but that could be solved as well...

No it won't - because 95% of customers do not understand the technology services they purchase from ISP's.

Whether they don't understand or simply don't care about the same things doesn't make it a market failure simply because they don't have the same priorities you do.

 

[Dolph]

And those catering to the 5% who are savvy will charge hilariously high prices for their super-duper ultra-freedom go anywhere Internet access, which is barely as good as what we have now.

So you are effectively arguing for regulation to enforce that the many subsidise the wants of the few?

 

[[TW]Fox]

So you are effectively arguing for regulation to enforce that the many subsidise the wants of the few?

No, he's arguing for regulation so that the ignorance of the many do not allow firms to provide sub standard services knowing that most people can barely click a mouse let alone identify that the ISP's policies are 'breaking my facebooks man'.

 

[Amp34]

What would happen if you used a VPN?

 

[Dolph]

No, he's arguing for regulation so that the ignorance of the many do not allow firms to provide sub standard services knowing that most people can barely click a mouse let alone identify that the ISP's policies are 'breaking my facebooks man'.

Ah, so now people's purchases have to be regulated by the all knowing state because the people are too stupid to make decisions on their own?

Still not a convincing argument...

I will also point out, back in my first post in this thread, that I was very clear that the ISP's needed to be:

crystal clear what their policy regarding net neutrality/traffic shaping actually is and make it publicly available.

so those people will have the information to make an informed choice, assuming they actually use it.

 

[AGD]

Imagine that you want to buy a game online from your favourite store but the website seems very slow or doesn't load at all. You are forced to use a more expensive store whose website does load. Now imagine that this happened because your internet service provider signed a deal with the more expensive store to do this for them. That is what ed vaizey and other people against net neutrality want to happen!

Now imagine you want to access some news story but the connection is sooo slow that it takes too long, or imagine you can't access that story at all. Why? Because your internet provider has signed an exclusive deal with News International to prioritise their news content. Imagine how this could impact on freedom of speech.

Don't let these scenarios become a reality! Argue for net neutrality and an open internet.

 

[scorza]

The customer does behave rationally, just because you don't agree with their decision doesn't make them irrational.

In the example given by Yamahahahahaha, the customer rationally decides that problem x isn't worth the hassle of changing ISPs, that's a perfectly rational choice even if it isn't the same one we would make in the same situation.

I don't think Yamahahaha gave any such example, he just said that people don't change their ISP. The reasons I would suggest are more complicated than you assert - lack of understanding of the product I'd say was a key one.

 

[Vonhelmet]

So you are effectively arguing for regulation to enforce that the many subsidise the wants of the few?

Not really, I'm just saying that it will be abused massively.

But then most services like this are... Are mobile networks really competitive? Energy suppliers?

 

[LordSplodge]

But then most services like this are... Are mobile networks really competitive? Energy suppliers?

I've yet to see the "free" market actually work for larger services. Sure it works for the like of OCUK, but for mobile data, trains, energy and so on it just seems to be a massive cartel running riot whilst a toothless Government does nothing...

The same would happen for ISPs if this went through. There'd me more price fixing than you could shake a stick at.

 

[Dolph]

Not really, I'm just saying that it will be abused massively.

But then most services like this are... Are mobile networks really competitive? Energy suppliers?

Neither mobile networks or energy suppliers are particularly great examples. The development of mobile networks was greatly hindered and controlled by 'licensing' from the government raising the barrier of entry sky high, and the energy companies started well, then were nationalised and amalgamated, then broken down again somewhat badly and still heavily controlled and regulated with very high barriers to entry.

 

[Stripes]

I fail to see how this policy encourages innovation except in the realm of creating ever more intricate packages to nickel-and-dime a public kept deliberately in the dark, and the free-market expression of the sector will be those who are best at hoodwinking customers having the most successful. Regulations to encourage service transparency haven't worked in the past in other services and sectors, I'm wholly unconvinced that they'll succeed in this case.

Still, at least we don't have an effective monopoly for ISP provision in the UK. I can imagine that in the US customers would be well and truly screwed over by the geographic monopoly currently in operation.

 

[Danthus]

It is a flawed idea, take ISP's such as Enta resellers, they are going to have no say in what they are providing if Enta agree to prioritise certain traffic.

Any prioritisation is likely to happen a much higher level.

 

[Tunney]

Surely ISPs should be free to charge what they want, for the service they provide, as long as they are crystal clear what their policy regarding net neutrality/traffic shaping actually is and make it publicly available?

They don't though. I've had plenty of conversations with ISPs where they've denied blatant use of traffic shaping.

The market will quickly deal with bad traffic shaping policies

No, it won't. Just look at how successful BT broadband is despite it's high price, poor customer service and bad reliability.

 

[Dolph]

They don't though. I've had plenty of conversations with ISPs where they've denied blatant use of traffic shaping.

And that is something that should be prevented, and would be a good use of regulation.

No, it won't. Just look at how successful BT broadband is despite it's high price, poor customer service and bad reliability.

BT still has a lot of inertia in the public mind from when it was a state run monopoly...

 

[KNiVES]

I don't see the problem. Pay more, get more?

No, it's pay the same as we do now and get less, and pay more for the missing speeds. Hypothetical example - I'm paying 25 a month for 10mb net right now, and when this bill passes I'll end up paying 25 a month for 5mb net on high traffic sites instead, and would be forced to pay another 5 a month to get it back to normal speeds (numbers are made up obviously, but feel free to ignore this and argue about them ala OCUK forums style). There is no way in hell anyone can see this as a good thing.

Don't go thinking we'll see faster internet speeds - we won't. Our internet speeds will go down and the only way it can go back to normal levels is by paying these extra charges.

Supporting this bill is like saying it's fine to sell cars with a tyre missing, with it only included if you pay extra than the stated price.

It's madness.

 

[LordSplodge]

No, it won't. Just look at how successful BT broadband is despite it's high price, poor customer service and bad reliability.

Correct, there is no benefit for the end user. The only benefit for this is the media industry that will push its content. In America where the big ISPs have a monopoly consumers are going to be royally screwed.

Funny that the rise of iPlayer and user generated video content has pushed this. We were happily sold "unlimited" packages but now we actually use them... Oh no that's wrong.

Our house (1 heavy and two medium Internet users) has used a perfectly legal 70 gigabytes of data in the last 17 days and streamed video counts for a lot of that... Aside from iPlayer I can vouch that almost non of it would be the mass produced crap that the media cartels would like to feed me.

It will be sad when the age of user produced high definition video and audio comes to an end but people can pay more to get a better connection to the XFactor website...

 

[Macro]

Actually I don't see this as all bad.

This forum has a very small subset of users that use the internet more than average and a somewhat skewed view of the internet. I'd suggest that the majority of internet users in my experience are perfectly happy with BT Online et al for the web browsing/banking/online shopping day to day tasks.

From my point of view I'd happily pay another 5 or 10 quid a month for a low ping consistent bandwidth managed service that is protected from l33tuser007 downloading "linux distros" all day long either peer to peer or by usernet.

ISPs can't continue to invest in bandwidth at the level they need to subsidise warez or other people’s business models. Why should BBC iPlayer, 4OD, Hulu and the others make money by taking someone else’s infrastructure to its knees without even paying for it?

Virgin Media is a good example, they get a lot of stick but people forget the’ve been bankrupt at least once and still have something like £5billion of debts. This is not the rich, raking it in evil company trying to rip off it’s customers people like to make out. A lot of the other ISPs are in a similar situation, you only have to look at how many well-known names that have vanished (Nildram, Pipex anyone?) over recent years to see domestic internet provision is not a license to print money

People seem to think free, unlimited as much as you can (ab)use internet is a right that has always been. Don’t forget that until ~10 years ago that although the "net" was free you paid not only for your subscription (AOL, Compuserve, Demon etc) you paid by the minute for modem dial up or broadband by the mb.

Unfortunately greed has come home to roost, greed of the few who think that a 50mb connection means they should download "linux distros" 24x7 maxing the through put all the time. Business like Google make billions in profits on the basis that someone else (the ISPs) pays for the infrastructure to deliver their increasing services, for free.

It's not a sustainable model. The ISPs are all looking at each other waiting for the first to go down the managed traffic route and it's coming soon like it or not.

For a few years we've had an open flat rate internet unmanaged and neutral in its delivery and frankly it was a beautiful thing. People took the **** and so the ISPs are pushing back and we'll start to see a service based on the postal service - are you sending that first or second class sir? And to be fair, relatively low bandwidth, high contention service will suit the majority of people for email/web/banking/online shopping etc just fine...

The ISPs that find the right mix of service and cost will do good business and to be fair I don’t see that they should be any different from any other commercial business. You get what you pay for. The internet culture that everything should be free or flat rate just isn’t sustainable (unless that flat rate is a lot higher than it is now).

Not a popular view I know but I tend to think it’s realistic…

 

[scorza]

Neither mobile networks or energy suppliers are particularly great examples. The development of mobile networks was greatly hindered and controlled by 'licensing' from the government raising the barrier of entry sky high, and the energy companies started well, then were nationalised and amalgamated, then broken down again somewhat badly and still heavily controlled and regulated with very high barriers to entry.

But it was an auction under free-market conditions - surely they paid the going market rate for their 3G licenses, and if they did it's a customer failure not a market failure.

 

[Dolph]

But it was an auction under free-market conditions - surely they paid the going market rate for their 3G licenses, and if they did it's a customer failure not a market failure.

It wasn't just the 3g licenses, the heavily regulated nature of the market started way before that...

 

[Energize]

People seem to think free, unlimited as much as you can (ab)use internet is a right that has always been. Don’t forget that until ~10 years ago that although the "net" was free you paid not only for your subscription (AOL, Compuserve, Demon etc) you paid by the minute for modem dial up or broadband by the mb.

You seem to be confusing net neutrality with bandwidth and monthly usage allowance. We're talking about the average person using iplayer or youtube not wanting to wait an hour for a video to buffer, not the inability to download 1TB of movies at 100Mb/s.