[colug-432] Net Neutrality

[tom]

On 02/21/2014 10:56 AM, Rick Troth wrote:
> On 02/21/2014 10:32 AM, tom wrote:
>> Wonder what the downside of reclassifying broadband as a public utility
>> would be? Unintended consequences?
>
> Amen. Thoughts on FCC intervention near the end of this note.
>
>
> On 02/21/2014 10:45 AM, Jeff Frontz wrote:
>> The only negative I can think of is that the incentive to innovate 
>> goes away -- you're guaranteed a rate of return regardless of how 
>> much you push the envelope.
>
> Government as the corporate master ... see experiment with union of 
> nations from Eastern Europe and parts of Northern Asia for most of the 
> 20th century. Experiment failed. Vestiges remain in the form of 
> (apparent) organized crime (or just simple corruption), which we enjoy 
> in our own "experiment" anyway.
>
>> Given our data rates (compared to most third-world nations), I'm not 
>> too worried about stifling innovation-- it seems to have died a while 
>> ago.
>
> Amen! But see below for observations about Ma Bell.
>
>
> On 02/21/2014 10:48 AM, Angelo McComis wrote:
>> First thought that comes to mind is governance and regulatory oversight by
>> PUCO, (---O at least in Ohio)
>
> PUC (any state) doesn't always "get it". When they do, things work 
> well (IMLX), certainly somewhere north of misery.
>
> When I lived in Dallas, most telephone exchanges were SWB, but 
> Garland's were GTE. (As things progressed, GTE got better, but in 
> Garland in the 70s the phone service sucked.) They could at least make 
> calls. My impression of the suckage was more in terms of customer 
> service. I don't recall any substantial outages (but then, per IMLX, 
> experience was limited and I was just coming to consciousness about 
> these things). Those were the days when it was "illegal" to add 
> another phone ... to the twisted pair in your own [expletive deleted] 
> residence. (Where was the PUC on *that* point??)
LOL My father built a house in Upper Arlington in the early 50's. He 
circumvented Ma Bell's extra charge for extra phones. He had the phone 
company install a "ringer" while the house was under construction so 
that he could remove the phone at night. He then wired the house for 
multiple phones. Ma BEll could not tell that there was more than 1 phone 
installed beyond the "ringer".
>
> With respect to electricity (another utility subservient to the 
> dreaded PUC), there were few-to-no outages other than storm induced 
> (or unintended excavation, same as for phone service). Rates were 
> tolerable, seemed in-line with actual costs, and yet the power 
> company(ies) made great profits.
>
> In both cases, innovation was not stifled. On balance, I can't say it 
> wasn't "subdued" because I never worked for such companies. But I 
> witnessed cool/interesting/exciting/profitable developments by those 
> who did work for them. Ma Bell still managed to do signal processing 
> before digital methods were available. The Electric Company (sorry, 
> make that plural, and lose the reference to the PBS television show) 
> through consortia like EPRI created amazing things like high-current 
> transistors. (And eventually I learned that stereotypically bland 
> concepts like three-phase are actually kind of exciting.)
>
> _Does any of this correlate to Comcast, TWC, AT&T, or any other 
> digital traffic carriers of today?_ (I leave the question open. I 
> don't have an answer nor much of an opinion, just a fair amount of worry.)
>
> I'm a ham radio operator (for varying values of "operator", since I'm 
> rarely on the air these days). I'm sensitive to what is allowed and 
> what is not allowed in RF space. The electro-magnetic ether is like a 
> single planetary twisted pair anyone can tap into (with substantial 
> signal loss at the ends, by comparison). Listening is free (and 
> expected, so no expectation of privacy). What you "post" is regulated 
> (by the FCC and related international bodies). There's real legitimacy 
> to constraining transmission, both in terms of content and in terms of 
> power.
>
> In radio, originally anyone could transmit anything at any strength. 
> We eventually figured out to narrow our bandwidth enough to have 
> channels of a sort (by bands and frequencies). Then came the FCC and a 
> couple of world wars, but experiment was allowed and "hams" acquiesced 
> and became the LUG equivalent of the analog age (hackers ... in the 
> "good kind" sense of the word).
>
> Some hams recall (through the testimony of hams older than our 
> grandparents) that the government tasted control of radio (via the 
> FCC), liked it, and didn't intend to ever give it up.
>
> The FCC has changed, has been infected by the same lobbyist illness 
> the rest of Washington suffers. Though I believe some commissioners 
> still care about the best interest (of country, consumer, and the 
> technology).
>
> Not sure how much of this makes sense, but it seems like the net was 
> more neutral when it was all science and military. [sigh]
>
> -- R; <><
>
>
>
>
>
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Sounds like dammed if you do, dammed if you don't.

Tom
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