Why Net Neutrality is bad for Internet users

supersunbird said:
We are not even all talking about the same thing it seems.

Question (example):
Does MWEB allowing full speed ShowMax while throttling Netflix (if they were so inclined) fall under Net Neutrality or not? If not, what is that called then? Cause that is what I'm talking about with Net Neutrality.
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^ This
 
Arthur said:
Free enterprise? In South Africa??

You must be joking.

We don't have free enterprise in telecoms in South Africa. Our telecommunications infrastructure was a state-controlled monopoly for seventy years. Then the government corporatised the monopoly and allowed private businesses to operate in a few little corners while it retained control over the infrastructure and still heavily regulates private businesses.

To this very day, private businesses are heavily constrained, limited and restricted in what they can do. The heavy hand of government still operates through a vast and complex web of expensive and competition-limiting licences, regulations, rules, and restrictions. The state-owned former monopolist still enjoys protections, patronage and favours not available to its pseudo-competitors.

The whole telecommunications market in SA is so riddled with rules, limitations and restrictions - all the result of government interference - that private businesses have very little room on which to operate without government favour.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that privately-owned businesses are synonymous with the free market. Very far from it. When government decides who can compete and who cannot, we don't have a free market. Privately-owned business just gets is favours from government, and government-erected barriers to entry remain.

The last thing we have in SA telecoms is a free market.
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I am not and have never defended government obstacles but have you not forgotten how they colluded among themselves and government? The whole reason there is no free enterprise. But this is kinda the reasoning I expect from someone who doesn't understand that publicly shared resources need to be protected.
 
A good article triggering good debate (something seldom seen in MyBB forum conversations).

Net Neutrality is one of those topics where you 'just know' the answer. Till you start thinking about it and realise it's a complex topic with many nuances to consider.

Hopefully, we'll think a bit more about it as a country and industry before making a final call.
 
AndrewAlston said:
I actually read this article as a complete mis-understanding of net neutrality (well, how I, and many others define it anyway)

Let me explain. If you have a network and you prioritise (using QoS or something), *ALL* voice traffic to ensure clear voice quality - that is not a violation of net neutrality. However, if you have a VOIP product of your own and you prioritise that to the detriment of other VOIP going over the network, that is a violation of net neutrality. The former I have no issue with, the latter is a major problem.

Similarly with video traffic. If a provider were to preference (just you as examples) netflix over showmax, because of some commercial reason, then there is a problem, if all video streaming services were equally treated however, and the shaping was done to protect all video streaming from getting hurt by other traffic, again, I have no issue with this.

We need to differentiate between quality of service applied to protocols, and used to enhance overall network performance vs deliberate degradation of specific content for commercial advantage, the former is not a bad thing, the latter is a terrible thing.

Fact is QoS and some form of traffic management is necessary in any world where there are contention ratios applied, and that would include almost any commodity provider in the world. It is simply not commercially viable to *NOT* apply any form of QoS in those environments without some form of network degradation. It is a very different story in places where everyone is buying dedicated CIR bandwidth, but that simply isn't the case in the home user segment - if it was the price of home user bandwidth would be through the roof, because the input cost of providing that much bandwidth is high. (Consider, an ISP that has 100 thousand 10meg users behind it, would need a terabit of bandwidth if they were not contending)

So yeah - QoS the traffic to protect latency sensitive, loss sensitive real time traffic, but do not protect individual applications / corporate products. The former in my view is still net neutral, the latter is not. If we view it in this context, then yes, net neutrality is important and isn't bad for anyone.
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well said
 
deliberate degradation for commercial gain in a malicious or uncompetitive manner

it seems like people are worried about different products of the same service being given an advantage over another, like said, ISP MWEB giving showmax advantage over netflix, because of naspers interest.

or like cellphone companies degrading VOIP calling services or messaging services.

now. if you buy a product, a drink, a tv, a hard drive, a cricket bat, a teddy bear. are you going to go to the most expensive shop or a cheaper shop, or one that gives the worst offers or services or one that gives better.

or do you expect all shops to have the same prices for all products all over, in other words 1 shop in the entire world. who says they are giving their best possible price then? where is the competition driving the price down.

why not just change to an ISP giving a better netflix experience or a cellphone provider that delivers a better VOIP experience or msg delivery. go where it suites your needs.

you have a choice to change.

why go some place you know does not suite you and expect it to. there is no common sense in that.

if however, you have no place to go, as in a government is manipulating an entire country, then that to me is a whole different game all together. of course there are things like price fixing and collusion too. also something different in my opinion. there are different procedures and protections in place for these things and alike.
 
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access said:
deliberate degradation for commercial gain in a malicious or uncompetitive manner

it seems like people are worried about different products of the same service being given an advantage over another, like said, ISP MWEB giving showmax advantage over netflix, because of naspers interest.

or like cellphone companies degrading VOIP calling services or messaging services.

now. if you buy a product, a drink, a tv, a hard drive, a cricket bat, a teddy bear. are you going to go to the most expensive shop or a cheaper shop, or one that gives the worst offers or services or one that gives better.

or do you expect all shops to have the same prices for all products all over, in other words 1 shop in the entire world. who says they are giving their best possible price then? where is the competition driving the price down.

why not just change to an ISP giving a better netflix experience or a cellphone provider that delivers a better VOIP experience or msg delivery. go where it suites your needs.

you have a choice to change.

why go some place you know does not suite you and expect it to. there is no common sense in that.

if however, you have no place to go, as in a government is manipulating an entire country, then that to me is a whole different game all together. of course there are things like price fixing and collusion too. also something different in my opinion. there are different procedures and protections in place for these things and alike.
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Problem is that as we saw there used to be little choice in the isp space so not really a comparison there.
 
Swa said:
Problem is that as we saw there used to be little choice in the isp space so not really a comparison there.
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when do you think the competition commission should get involved.

when consumer products/service are being manipulated maybe
 
Arthur said:
Don't be fooled by the use of the term "neutrality". It's a clever bit of NewSpeak by government bureaucrats with socialist/collectivist views.

"Net neutrality" is an unjust, unwarranted and intolerable overthrow of the free market by government tyrants. It removes from the owners of telecommunications systems the freedom to use and sell their own property as they wish. That alone makes it unacceptable. Over the medium term this bit of socialist intrusion will end up hurting the costumers more.

When governments interfere in free markets we all end up worse off. Always and without exception. And "net neutraluty" is in fact the very opposite of what it's marketed as. It imposes a uniformity where none is needed. It is evil.
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You assume that "free market" and big business is reasonable....hampered by government intervention. I totally disagree, they will take advantage and collude to ensure they totally rob the consumer

A typical example is the cable box scam in the US, where consumers are being fleeced by cable companies until the government intervened.
 
I assume the free market is a necessary requirement for justice. It is a correlate of property rights. But I don't assume big business supports a free market. Often they love and lobby for government restrictions and state-imposed "standards" and controls and regulations because these raise barriers to entry for any potential competitors. Big Business has an atrocious record in supporting a free market.

As I said, do not confuse free enterprise and private enterprise. They are emphatically not the same thing.
 
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How about the ISP's increase the pipe's capacity to cope with normal traffic volumes?
 
access said:
it seems like people are worried about different products of the same service being given an advantage over another, like said, ISP MWEB giving showmax advantage over netflix, because of naspers interest.

<snip>

why not just change to an ISP giving a better netflix experience or a cellphone provider that delivers a better VOIP experience or msg delivery. go where it suites your needs.

you have a choice to change.
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What if I want to watch both Netflix and Showmax? Does that mean I need to get two different ISP accounts? For me, net neutrality is important because I should get the same quality of service for both from my ISP - they should not be able to decide for me.

I shouldn't have to choose my ISP based on whether what they decide to prioritize this month suits my needs. Next month they change their minds, and I'm screwed?

The first articles I read on this topic was about Netflix-type companies paying ISPs to prioritize their traffic (or ISPs charging them for the privilege, depending on your point of view). This practice is what will hamper competition, as a startup simply can't afford to pay the same fees, and is why we need net neutrality.

My 1c...
 
Internet provision is a utility, like water.

You can do things with water and make more money out of it (make a cooldrink and such) than the municipality. If you need more water than a household you pay more for a bigger pipe.
 
supersunbird said:
Internet provision is a utility, like water.

You can do things with water and make more money out of it (make a cooldrink and such) than the municipality. If you need more water than a household you pay more for a bigger pipe.
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Yup.

One of those things that requires state intervention to keep it free, open and competitive.
 
internetless said:
What if I want to watch both Netflix and Showmax? Does that mean I need to get two different ISP accounts? For me, net neutrality is important because I should get the same quality of service for both from my ISP - they should not be able to decide for me.

I shouldn't have to choose my ISP based on whether what they decide to prioritize this month suits my needs. Next month they change their minds, and I'm screwed?

The first articles I read on this topic was about Netflix-type companies paying ISPs to prioritize their traffic (or ISPs charging them for the privilege, depending on your point of view). This practice is what will hamper competition, as a startup simply can't afford to pay the same fees, and is why we need net neutrality.

My 1c...
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i do understand your reasoning behind this completely. i do try and approach things for both angles and try see others if possible too. i do keep in mind that we do not live in a perfect world with perfect outcomes, even if we had things perfect, some would get bored with it and seek alternatives.

what is to stop another ISP from making all those things that you like possible. there is nothing stopping them from making a favorable experience. more people will go to them forcing others to do the same to remain in business.

if i decided to make an ISP and i know what people expect from me and there is nothing stopping me, then why would i not do it, or do you think all ISPs will succumb to a possible bigger profit margin from one product supplier.

i know of ISPs that do not implement contention at all, even though its advertised, they do not shape and provide real uncapped even though its not advertised, i also know they provide true neutrality(which degrades performance btw) then i also know of others that do the complete opposite, as you would call them "evil corps". but as i said opposites do exist.

if all ISPs decide together that they will all punish the outsider company, or they all decide together that this one will handle this product, that one will handle another product and this one that and that one this. so that each one gets a predefined piece off the pie. this is another problem all together. collusion is not allowed.
 
obviously the real issue are cheap ISP's giving crap service to advertise lowest prices:

Imagine a particular network link is congested
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ISP should deliver their expected service at the appropriate quality/guarantee.
 
rbarryza said:
This is a load of horse crap. Net neutrality is the only thing stopping networks and ISPs from throttling competitor's products, or strong arming successful services like Netflix into giving them a cut of their revenue, just because they're successful. Networks and ISPs are pipes. They deliver data. What those ones and zeros become when they are added together at the other end of the pipe makes absolutely no difference to them. They're only trying to muscle in on the businesses transporting their data on their pipes with arguments like these. All they want is control.

Our world has been shaped by a free and open Internet. It's the main reason behind the incredible innovation we see happening on the Internet. Putting that in control of corporations is a very bad idea.

Here's a very good explanation of why Net Neutrality and an Open Internet is essential : http://www.theopeninter.net/
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It also forces the technology to grow and expand. No net neutrality means instead of getting more bandwidth an isp will just supply less to certain processes.
 
Swa said:
I fully agree with this. Shaping is a good thing if implemented correctly. People using voip or streaming can be given guaranteed throughput to provide a good stutter free experience, gamers can be ensured low pings and small bits of data like email or web pages can be delivered more quickly. I've long proposed that people be given a set amount of priority traffic like 10GB a month. That way lite web users will have a good experience while heavy downloaders don't bog down the network for everyone else but are still happy.

This is not how ISPs have done it though. Instead of giving priority like it is meant for they have used it to deprioritise traffic like voip data, streaming or making gaming impossible. Then they demand a ransom for lifting these restrictions under the guise of giving priority to "normal" data like web browsing. Who decides what normal internet usage is? Is using voip or streaming or gaming not normal internet activities? Why should we pay more just to get these not prioritised but just treated normally?

ISPs have done this to themselves. They have shown that they can't be trusted so now they have to reap the fruit of their practices.
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Rubbish! Shaping has only one purpose and that is to entrench and hang on to the existing excessive profits being made made by greedy network providers .....
 
It removes from the owners of telecommunications systems the freedom to use and sell their own property as they wish.
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Yes, it may do that, and the reason is that we want a freer market.
 
We're sunk. When people start calling on the government to regulate private property as if it were a public utility, civilisation is heading for oblivion. It's really a form of expropriation.

/Departs this thread disappointed and saddened by people's lack of love for liberty.
 
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