Vote for Net Neutrality

[Madelaine McMasters]

30 minutes ago, Gadget Portal said:

Like it or not, Phil is right. 

Even if the content on the Internet is a human right, the hardware we need to access it still belongs to someone- someone has to pay for it.

The infrastructure providers obtain rights to deploy from governments, often in exchange for required public access. As I mentioned elsewhere, this is how rural America got telephones and access roads to rail lines, all built by the infrastructure providers as a requirement for obtaining the right to build out their systems. Those were economically unviable endeavors made viable by government "coercion".

Similarly, radio and television broadcasters are required to offer services for the public good in exchange for access to the public airwaves. US cable companies must offer free access for transmission of public, educational and government programming. That's in exchange for being given the right to deploy their cable in the first place. I've a friend who hosted a public access show for a couple years. All he had to do was sign up for air time and show up in the studio, which was in the public library. The hardware belonged to Time Warner Cable. They were required to provide and maintain it, and had no control over access to it.

As for who pays for it, it's always people, either to companies or governments. There's nobody else here.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Madelaine McMasters

[Phil Deakins]

28 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

This "network of computers connected by cables" simply doesn't exist, except as an idea. The computers and cables are independent. As an old geek, over the years I've connected to the "internet" over lines intended for voice telephony (if we stretch definitions, even by using an acoustic-coupling modem connected to a teletype, as my avatar blushes and hides her face), lines intended for cable television service, etc. The physical internet only exists to serve the idea of connected computers. The hardware itself constantly changes.

Sigh...

Yes the network does exist. It's real. It comprises real cables (backbones and such), and real computers (ISPs operate name servers, servers, and such, to facilitate the traffic (content) moving around their bit of the internet, and even individuals who have their own computers connected either to the backbone, or an offshoot, or even an ISP.

Yes, the cables and computers are independantly owned. And that's the point. They are owned. Privately owned. Not publically owned. And we have no rights to use their hardware, unless they grant it.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Madelaine McMasters]

28 minutes ago, Gadget Portal said:

That said, no ISP has to provide you with Internet if they don't want to, it's their hardware.

See my explanation of this elsewhere. Infrastructure providers must often provide free public access or other conditions of operation to obtain the right to deploy. It might be their hardware, but it's not their "space".

[Phil Deakins]

@Madelaine McMasters

If the internet's infrastructure owners are governments, then their citizens do have right to make use of it. But I don't think that's the case anywhere yet.

If a country's government makes it law that IPS must allow anyone to use their equipment, then, again, their citizens would have a right to use it. But, again, I don't think that's the case anywhere yet.

It may come to it where governments do make such laws concerning the internet, then things would be much like the TV, radio, etc, that you mentioned, but I'm not aware of any such laws in any country yet. I may, of course be wrong. I don't believe we have such laws here in the UK, or in EU. As long as there are no such laws, we have no rights to use the internet.

[Phil Deakins]

7 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

See my explanation of this elsewhere. Infrastructure providers must often provide free public access or other conditions of operation to obtain the right to deploy. It might be their hardware, but it's not their "space".

When you can show that such laws apply to the internet, then it be worthwhile posting about it. But all you've shown so far are laws concerning TV and such, presumably assuming that they will also come for the internet. But they haven't come yet, as far as I know, and we are discussing what is, and not what might be.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Theresa Tennyson]

5 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

Sigh...

Yes the network does exist. It's real. It comprises real cables (backbones and such), and real computers (ISPs operate name servers, servers, and such, to facilitate the traffic (content) moving around their bit of the internet, and even individuals who have their own computers connected either to the backbone, or an offshoot, or even an ISP.

Yes, the cables and computers are independantly owned. And that's the point. They are owned. Privately owned. Not publically owned. And we have rights to use their hardware, unless they grant it.

Hold on just a ding-dong minute -- most European telcos are at best privatized former government services, and in the United States the phone system was a government-sanctioned monopoly for decades. As far as cable television, I remember that the city of Detroit gave one company a franchise to wire the city.

[Paul Hexem]

11 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

See my explanation of this elsewhere. Infrastructure providers must often provide free public access or other conditions of operation to obtain the right to deploy. It might be their hardware, but it's not their "space".

Still, a public access point in a library is very different than providing the connection to a whole country or state or town.

If you know of a place that has free, fast Internet provided to everyone that lives there, let me know so I can move.

[Phil Deakins]

1 minute ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Hold on just a ding-dong minute -- most European telcos are at best privatized former government services, and in the United States the phone system was a government-sanctioned monopoly for decades. As far as cable television, I remember that the city of Detroit gave one company a franchise to wire the city.

We are not talking about television.

Most 'telcos' in the UK were never publically owned (former government services). There was only one here in the UK, and that one was sold off. Since then, others have sprung up that were never in the hands of the government. Most offer the usual 3 services - phone, TV, and broadband, and it's only the broadband that we are talking about. They are privately owned, and there are no laws about who they have to allow access to. If I want access to the internet via one of them (using their equipment), they can refuse me. I have no rights in the matter.

[Teagan Tobias]

ISP’s can’t refuse to offer service, they have a Government License to operate, they can not pick and choose who gets service in the area they have a license to operate in, yes you must pay for it, but you can not be denied access on a whim. That has nothing to do with Net Neutrality.

[Phil Deakins]

1 minute ago, Teagan Tobias said:

ISP’s can’t refuse to offer service, they have a Government License to operate, they can not pick and choose who gets service in the area they have a license to operate in, yes you must pay for it, but you can not be denied access on a whim. That has nothing to do with Net Neutrality.

Which country are you talking about?

[Teagan Tobias]

Just now, Phil Deakins said:

Which country are you talking about?

USA

[Phil Deakins]

Can you point to any documentation of your claim?

[Theresa Tennyson]

4 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

We are not talking about television.

Most 'telcos' in the UK were never publically owned (former government services). There was only one here in the UK, and that one was sold off. Since then, others have sprung up that were never in the hands of the government. Most offer the usual 3 services - phone, TV, and broadband, and it's only the broadband that we are talking about. They are privately owned, and there are no laws about who they have to allow access to. If I want access to the internet via one of them (using their equipment), they can refuse me. I have no rights in the matter.

We're talking about the wires, the preshus, preshus wires that were your obsession a few posts ago.

[Paul Hexem]

5 minutes ago, Teagan Tobias said:

ISP’s can’t refuse to offer service, they have a Government License to operate, they can not pick and choose who gets service in the area they have a license to operate in, yes you must pay for it, but you can not be denied access on a whim. That has nothing to do with Net Neutrality.

They absolutely can refuse you service, unless the reason has to do with race or another protected class. 

[Teagan Tobias]

4 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

Can you point to any documentation of your claim?

Don’t need to, if your that interested look it up. But in the USA you need a license do do just about anything. Drive a car build a house sell booz and on and on and on.

[Phil Deakins]

6 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

We're talking about the wires, the preshus, preshus wires that were your obsession a few posts ago.

It's never been an obsession. It's merely a fact. It's you who didn't know the difference between the internet and the web. And I'm still talking about it - cables, computers, infrastructure - the internet. Not just "wires" lol.

Incidentally, when you take a broadband service, you are taking connection to an ISP - cables, computers, infrastructure - of the internet.

 

Edited December 10, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Phil Deakins]

2 minutes ago, Teagan Tobias said:

But in the USA you need a license do do just about anything. Drive a car build a house sell booz and on and on and on.

We know that. We're not talking about anything like those things. We are only discussing the internet and whether or not people have a right to access it.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Theresa Tennyson]

8 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

It's never been an obsession. It's merely a fact. It's you who didn't know the difference between the internet and the web. And I'm still talking about it - cables, computers, infrastructure - the internet. Not just "wires" lol.

Incidentally, when you take a broadband service, you are taking connection to an ISP - cables, computers, infrastructure - of the internet.

 

But your ISP doesn't necessarily own the infrastructure they're using - in fact, for connecting to something like Second Life they own at best a small fraction of it. It's possible that they own none of it at all. And it's also very possible that some or all of the infrastructure they're using was never originally intended to be used for Internet data - that's why I mentioned cable television. In many places in the United States internet service is provided over cables originally laid for television service.

[Madelaine McMasters]

18 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

But your ISP doesn't necessarily own the infrastructure they're using - in fact, for connecting to something like Second Life they own at best a small fraction of it. It's possible that they own none of it at all. And it's also very possible that some or all of the infrastructure they're using was never originally intended to be used for Internet data - that's why I mentioned cable television. In many places in the United States internet service is provided over cables originally laid for television service.

Yep, in Milwaukee, service provisioning was like an onion, with layer after layer of licenses and contracts between various companies and city/state government, over a mix of private and public facilities. When the city attempted to offer internet access via its existing, underutilized, underground optical network (1000x+ the capacity needed to run traffic and emergency services) they ran into state law prohibiting it, because the cable and phone companies had been savvy enough to negotiate restrictions on competitive use of public resources in exchange for meeting requirements for the right to deploy. Public officials did not for-see the arrival of the internet at the time and so they negotiated away what eventually turned out to be a valuable capability. That public infrastructure continues to go unused, with the city only being able to capitalize on the empty space in underground conduit, not the millions of dollars in gear they pulled through it.

In my own neighborhood, Time Warner was required to carry traffic for a competitor in exchange for being allowed to pull cable under public lands. AT&T was required to give Time Warner access to their telephone poles to avoid tearing up neighborhoods for cable. This stuff happens all the time. There is a constant back and forth between businesses and government as each tries to optimize for its own particular goals. Sometimes those goals are in harmony, sometimes not.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Madelaine McMasters

[Phil Deakins]

@Theresa Tennyson

Good grief. Of course your ISP owns their bit of the infrastructure. And, of course, it's only a small part of the whole internet that they own. But how do you imagine this post is going to cross the atlantic and end up in this forum? If it's a large ISP, it connects to the privately-owned internet backbone in the UK. If it's only a small one, it connects to something smaller. Here's a snippet acquired from a search in Google:-

When you connect to your ISP, you become part of their network. The ISP may then connect to a larger network and become part of their network. The Internet is simply a network of networks. Most large communications companies have their own dedicated backbones connecting various regions.

Plenty of small parts of the whole infrastructure, and all privately owned. It doesn't matter whether or not parts of it were originally intended for internet use. They exist, and they are not publically owned.

I get cable TV too. The company provides me with cable TV, phone service and broadband. It doesn't matter how the hardware they use originated, the fact is that data moving out of that provider, across the atlantic, and onto this forum has to travel via privately owned infrastructure - cables and computers - much of it created for the internet.

What are you trying to argue here? The internet actually exists for real. It's not just a concept. Are you arguing against that? The internet and the content are totally different things. Are you still trying to argue against that? I would have thought you'd understand the difference by now. I don't know what you are trying to get at.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Gadget Portal said:

Still, a public access point in a library is very different than providing the connection to a whole country or state or town.

If you know of a place that has free, fast Internet provided to everyone that lives there, let me know so I can move.

Chatanooga, TN...

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ezpk77/chattanooga-gigabit-fiber-network

During the year my boarder lived in Boston, he was able to cancel his cable internet package when the city put a Wi-Fi router on the light pole outside his apartment building...

https://www.cityofboston.gov/news/Default.aspx?id=6597

It's not all peaches and cream though...

https://www.vox.com/2016/8/10/12427462/municipal-broadband-fcc-chattanooga

Edited December 10, 2017 by Madelaine McMasters

[Theresa Tennyson]

7 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

@Theresa Tennyson

Good grief. Of course your ISP owns their bit of the infrastructure. And, of course, it's only a small part of the whole internet that they own.

 

They might lease all of it - in fact that's highly likely if you have more options for service than physical wires entering your house. And even if they own the wires there's very little chance that they own the land that they go over or under - that's probably public land.

What I'm arguing is that the backbone of the internet is much more complicated than John Galt with a post-hole digger and a cable reel connecting you to sweet, sweet Free Enterprise.

[Madelaine McMasters]

4 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

They might lease all of it - in fact that's highly likely if you have more options for service than physical wires entering your house. And even if they own the wires there's very little chance that they own the land that they go over or under - that's probably public land.

What I'm arguing is that the backbone of the internet is much more complicated than John Galt with a post-hole digger and a cable reel connecting you to sweet, sweet Free Enterprise.

I'm working from memory here, but I think the Time Warner Cable that was strung on AT&T phone poles was actually owned and operated by a third party that leased the result to both carriers. I see different service trucks making overhead cable repairs than I do making underground ones. I haven't followed Milwaukee in the 15 years since they attempted to capitalize on their public infrastructure, but their goal eventually became to lease it out to private enterprise. If carriers can unload public access rights management to more efficient third parties, they'll do it.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Madelaine McMasters

[Phil Deakins]

23 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

They might lease all of it - in fact that's highly likely if you have more options for service than physical wires entering your house. And even if they own the wires there's very little chance that they own the land that they go over or under - that's probably public land.

What I'm arguing is that the backbone of the internet is much more complicated than John Galt with a post-hole digger and a cable reel connecting you to sweet, sweet Free Enterprise.

Yes, of course, some lease from others, and, of course, none own the land that cables go under - under the pavement in my case. But what has that got to do with anything?

And yes, of course, the backbone of the internet is not the simple case you described. So what? You were arguing that the internet is only a concept, and not real hardware. You now appear to accept that you were mistaken, so why continue to argue? Honestly, it does give me the impression that you're only continuing for the sake of continuing, and not because I'm writing things that you now disagree with. I get the impression that you're coming up with anything you can think of in the hope that it might make some sort of point.

Just out of interest, here's a Wikipedia article on the internet backbone that you might find interesting.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Theresa Tennyson]

10 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

Yes, of course, some lease from others, and, of course, none own the land that cables go under - under the pavement in my case. But what has that got to do with anything?

It has to do with your saying that "of course" ISP's own their portions of the backbone.

And yes, of course, the backbone of the internet is not the simple case you described. So what? You were arguing that the internet is only a concept, and not real hardware. You now appear to accept that you were mistaken, so why continue to argue? Honestly, it does give me the impression that you're only continuing for the sake of continuing, and not because I'm writing things that you disagree with. I get the impression that you're coming up with anything you can think of in the hope that it might a point.

Just out of interest, here's a Wikipedia article on the internet backbone that you might find interesting.

That backbone could be just as obsolete as copper phone lines are now in a few years, but odds are there will still be an "Internet" running over something completely different. (Oh, by the way, the article says the basic structure of the backbone - what you're insisting is the "internet" - was originally created by government entities.)