EU votes against Net Neutrality amendments

Tunney · 27 Oct 2015 at 18:37

scorza said:
I don't really like the way MEPs are elected - when I had a complaint about a European law recently I looked up who I should write to and got a list of about 20 people - UKIP, Conservative, Labour, LibDem all represented. I wrote to one of them and didn't get a reply - was I supposed to write to all of them?

That's really poor form of them not to reply. I've only e-mailed my local MEP twice but got a reply both times.

writetothem.com allows you to look up and e-mail all of your MEPs at once. You're probably best off seeing which MEP most closely agrees with your views and who is most likely to take your cause forward in the European parliament (i.e. not UKIP or anyone else who doesn't turn up very often).

anything I don't mind · 27 Oct 2015 at 19:05

hughtrimble said:
Swing and a massive miss!

Go a head then, tell me a scenario where net neutrality could solve a problem? Tell me what is the problem and how does net neutrality solve it?

I don't see any positive results coming from legislation that forces companies to do anything regarding their choices around buying and selling bandwidth.

If a supplier at any level is restricting access to content through bandwidth management then the people paying for that service will look elsewhere.

stuman · 27 Oct 2015 at 19:35

but...... who's the chic in seat 663?!

Hitman_Leon · 28 Oct 2015 at 10:59

platypus said:
I might have missed the point here but were you giving me a definition of what Accountable means?

Not at all, just my personal view on how I believe the government sidesteps accountability.

FoxEye · 28 Oct 2015 at 11:08

anything I don't mind said:
I am against net neutrality. I don't think we need the government to get involved. The internet is already broken up in to different tiers. When it comes to the netflix situation the problem there was not that netflix should pay the isp for more bandwidth. It's that the isp is selling services without meeting the demands of their customers.

In the us comcast and other isp have incentive to not offer netflix to its customers because it hurts their other TV business offering. If comcast refuse to upgrade their bandwidth to accomdate the increases in use that is not netflix fault. That is the isp fault.

When the government starts getting involved it will lead to negative results as it will disturb incentives at the different Internet tiers. If comcast refuse to pay for more bandwith they will lose customers. This is only a problem when through the state comcast has managed to prevent competition.

Net neutrality is not needed the market will self regulate. If anything what the government should do is prevent isp from over selling their bandwidth and calling it traffic shaping or mangement. If someone pays for 20mbit they should get that speed, the net neutrality argument mis understands the problem and is just an attempt by the isp to get websites to pay for their costs.

Is our existing law sufficient to stop, for example, BT deliberately killing Sky Sports streaming traffic on its network, in order to promote BT Sport instead? Let's say they dialled Sky's streaming traffic priority to rock bottom, so the service was continually buffering and useless.

Is there any guarantee that providers won't start to offer content themselves, and use traffic shaping, etc, to hurt the competing services on its network? I mean lets face it, BT isn't just an ISP anymore. They could decide to create a service to rival Netflix, and then kill Netflix's traffic too.

Is this not open to abuse?

platypus · 28 Oct 2015 at 11:10

Hitman_Leon said:
Not at all, just my personal view on how I believe the government sidesteps accountability.

Oh right in which case we're in agreement.

platypus · 28 Oct 2015 at 11:10

FoxEye said:
Is our existing law sufficient to stop, for example, BT deliberately killing Sky Sports streaming traffic on its network, in order to promote BT Sport instead? Let's say they dialled Sky's streaming traffic priority to rock bottom, so the service was continually buffering and useless.

Is there any guarantee that providers won't start to offer content themselves, and use traffic shaping, etc, to hurt the competing services on its network? I mean lets face it, BT isn't just an ISP anymore. They could decide to create a service to rival Netflix, and then kill Netflix's traffic too.

Is this not open to abuse?

Of course it is.

ISPs can start to offer cheaper content, because they are peering it on their own hardware, and charge the likes of Netflix etc more. Why do you think Sky moved into home broadband? They've been lobbying for this, and it will become the "consumer battleground" of the future. Not only do they target consumers with broadband service offers, they will target with better content service or cheaper prices. I can't imagine it's long before one of the ISPs seals a deal with Netflix to offer it at the "normal price" compared to ISP x where its 20% more expensive.

FoxEye · 28 Oct 2015 at 11:19

platypus said:
Of course it is.

ISPs can start to offer cheaper content, because they are peering it on their own hardware, and charge the likes of Netflix etc more. Why do you think Sky moved into home broadband? They've been lobbying for this, and it will become the "consumer battleground" of the future. Not only do they target consumers with broadband service offers, they will target with better content service or cheaper prices. I can't imagine it's long before one of the ISPs seals a deal with Netflix to offer it at the "normal price" compared to ISP x where its 20% more expensive.

This is the nightmarish vision of the future as I see it.

"What's the best ISP for YouTube? I can't get HD streaming on Sky."
"Oh you can't get that at all on BT, but you do get BTTube, which is better, imho."
"On Virgin tho you get VirginMusic. You can't get Spotify, but nobody uses that now since they refused to pay the big networks for bandwidth. And we know how /that/ ended up for them."

It'll be a case of choosing your ISP depending on which sites you want, which are carried and which aren't.

platypus · 28 Oct 2015 at 11:22

It's a little simplified, but essentially in a nutshell how I see it as well.

Yaayuh! · 28 Oct 2015 at 11:24

FoxEye said:
This is the nightmarish vision of the future as I see it.

"What's the best ISP for YouTube? I can't get HD streaming on Sky."
"Oh you can't get that at all on BT, but you do get BTTube, which is better, imho."
"On Virgin tho you get VirginMusic. You can't get Spotify, but nobody uses that now since they refused to pay the big networks for bandwidth. And we know how /that/ ended up for them."

It'll be a case of choosing your ISP depending on which sites you want, which are carried and which aren't.

Indeed.

I'm already sick of exclusive content with services. If the consumer wants their content, they'll have to fork out for several services. Consumer loses.

antijoke · 28 Oct 2015 at 11:24

FoxEye said:
This is the nightmarish vision of the future as I see it.

"What's the best ISP for YouTube? I can't get HD streaming on Sky."
"Oh you can't get that at all on BT, but you do get BTTube, which is better, imho."
"On Virgin tho you get VirginMusic. You can't get Spotify, but nobody uses that now since they refused to pay the big networks for bandwidth. And we know how /that/ ended up for them."

It'll be a case of choosing your ISP depending on which sites you want, which are carried and which aren't.

It really won't.

FoxEye · 28 Oct 2015 at 11:27

anticonscience said:
It really won't.

You think the ISPs won't want to extract more revenue from their products if they possibly can?

OK then.

Oh Ed not again. · 28 Oct 2015 at 11:27

CISA just passed with next to no opposition as well.

So blanket surveillance with immunity for corporations when they routinely hand over user data to government on one side, and paving the way for mass monetisation of the Internet on the other side.

Well done, you've taken something awesome and managed to **** it for everyone.

Yaayuh! · 28 Oct 2015 at 11:28

What are the chances we'll have some new ISPs pop up for the consumer. Being neutral and open. If so, i'll be with them and so will many others.

StriderX · 28 Oct 2015 at 11:29

Looks like the EU core realise that the Eurosceptics are going to be a major force soon and are desperately trying to pass all these delightful measures.

platypus · 28 Oct 2015 at 11:30

StriderX said:
Looks like the EU core realise that the Eurosceptics are going to be a major force soon and are desperately trying to pass all these delightful measures.

The major trouble is, in the event of an EU exit, what is going to compel British ISPs to reverse these decisions?

Nothing.

StriderX · 28 Oct 2015 at 11:33

Oh well nothing to see here folks, the internet is officially comatose.

platypus · 28 Oct 2015 at 11:35

randal said:
CISA just passed with next to no opposition as well.

So blanket surveillance with immunity for corporations when they routinely hand over user data to government on one side, and paving the way for mass monetisation of the Internet on the other side.

Well done, you've taken something awesome and managed to **** it for everyone.

I'm not sure whats worse. That the bill was actually passed, or that only 90 out of 751 MEPs bothered to turn up.

antijoke · 28 Oct 2015 at 11:40

FoxEye said:
You think the ISPs won't want to extract more revenue from their products if they possibly can?

OK then.

You've got to be stupid to think your scenario will play out.

platypus · 28 Oct 2015 at 11:43

anticonscience said:
You've got to be stupid to thing your scenario will play out.

Pleasant.

Also, given the actions of businesses it's hardly that dramatic a scenario to imagine.