> If Pai’s majority permits fast lanes for the biggest internet service providers (ISPs like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T), companies could speed up or slow down the sites and services they prefer.
Is the slow down part a real thing? I'm familiar with local peering to speed up last mile services (ex: Netflix hubs) but I'm not aware of ISPs targeting specific companies to slow down their bandwidth. Beyond generic packet shaping to slow down or limit your overall connection, is targeted throttling like that for real? IANAL but I'd imagine the latter would get an ISP's ass handed to them in a lawsuit.
> Fast lanes or “paid prioritization” create anticompetitive incentives for ISPs to favor their own services over those of their competitors.
A better solution is to require that ISPs be only ISPs. If they don't have their own content mills to push then you don't have this problem. While you're at it, split out the physical maintenance of the pipes from the companies providing the ISP services so that the latter can compete as well.
Ah fuck it, just let the municipality run it and be done with this. Then we can all go to our local townhall meetings and listen to irate neighbors rail at our local representatives for throttling their porn downloads.
I agree with one thing you said: if the barriers to municipalities providing broadband internet are removed, then the current monopolies will discover what true competition feels like, and a lot of customers, especially those in underserved rural communities, will discover what true world class broadband internet service feel like.
They don't necessarily have to slow down competitors. They can just leave them at today's available bandwidth and speed. So ten years from now only companies who pay the toll, or ISP's own content, will stream over multi-gigabit connections. All others will be stuck at 2017 rates.
Slow down is real. When I was in uni the network admins had the Internet configured so that there was a throttle down for any connection longer than a minute and anything that looked like P2P. Browsing was fast, but when you clicked a download link you'd see the bandwidth go from 250kbs to ~40kbs right at the minute mark. Very frustrating. I used to pause and resume downloads manually to get around it.
> A better solution is to require that ISPs be only ISPs. If they don't have their own content mills to push then you don't have this problem.
That train left the station long time ago. Today almost all of them are tripple-play providers, meaning that will want competing TV and phone services to be "worse".
Some European mobile ISPs briefly degraded Skype service on their cheaper plans (Skype being the big VOIP thing at the time). Stopped pretty quickly; I assume they got a nasty letter from the EC.
> If Pai’s majority permits fast lanes for the biggest internet service providers (ISPs like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T), companies could speed up or slow down the sites and services they prefer.
Is the slow down part a real thing? I'm familiar with local peering to speed up last mile services (ex: Netflix hubs) but I'm not aware of ISPs targeting specific companies to slow down their bandwidth. Beyond generic packet shaping to slow down or limit your overall connection, is targeted throttling like that for real? IANAL but I'd imagine the latter would get an ISP's ass handed to them in a lawsuit.
> Fast lanes or “paid prioritization” create anticompetitive incentives for ISPs to favor their own services over those of their competitors.
A better solution is to require that ISPs be only ISPs. If they don't have their own content mills to push then you don't have this problem. While you're at it, split out the physical maintenance of the pipes from the companies providing the ISP services so that the latter can compete as well.
Ah fuck it, just let the municipality run it and be done with this. Then we can all go to our local townhall meetings and listen to irate neighbors rail at our local representatives for throttling their porn downloads.