Speaker 1: Get in touch technology with tech Stuff from how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to text Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, senior writer for how stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com, and today's episode is going to be
Speaker 1: about the concept of net neutrality and the battle of
Speaker 1: the nature of the Internet itself. Now, this is a
Speaker 1: complicated topic, particularly since the Internet is a global system
Speaker 1: and different countries deal with this in different ways. As
Speaker 1: per usual, I'll be focusing on the United States in
Speaker 1: this episode as that is where I am from. It
Speaker 1: is also the birthplace of the Internet itself. But keep
Speaker 1: in mind that net neutrality is an issue that is
Speaker 1: dealt with in various ways all around the world. Some
Speaker 1: countries are a little more um a man double to
Speaker 1: net neutrality than others. Some countries are infamously about as
Speaker 1: far away from net neutrality as you can get, like China,
Speaker 1: for example, in the Great Firewall there. But we're gonna
Speaker 1: focus mostly on the US. Also, I should add that
Speaker 1: I have covered this topic a few times before. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to listen to earlier episodes of tech Stuff
Speaker 1: in which I go into further detail for some of
Speaker 1: the concepts i'll talk about today, You can check out
Speaker 1: the following shows. The first is How Net Neutrality Works,
Speaker 1: which published way back in December two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: That means that was in the first six months of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff and it shows, but it also has my
Speaker 1: former co host Chris Palette on there, and together we
Speaker 1: try to explain what that neutrality is all about and
Speaker 1: why it was such a contentious topic then and even
Speaker 1: more so now, you could argue. Next, I have The
Speaker 1: War on Net Neutrality, which published on February twelve, two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, so much more recent, And then almost a
Speaker 1: year later, on February nine, two thousand fifteen, we published
Speaker 1: the episode what is a Common Carrier, which talked about
Speaker 1: the FCCS decision to change the classification of Internet service
Speaker 1: providers into common carriers. Uh, if you want to know
Speaker 1: more about that, you can check out those episodes. I'll
Speaker 1: cover some of that today because it's impossible to talk
Speaker 1: about this topic and get you guys up to speed
Speaker 1: without covering that. But if you want to look at
Speaker 1: more specifics, check out those episodes. So, the battle of
Speaker 1: net neutrality has been making headlines again recently, which is
Speaker 1: the reason why I'm recording this, and I think it's
Speaker 1: a topic that not everyone totally grasps. So today we're
Speaker 1: going to cover the basic definitions for net neutrality. We're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about the different entities that are in disagreement
Speaker 1: over net neutrality and their arguments and where things seem
Speaker 1: to be headed. And I should also point out that
Speaker 1: I record Tech Stuff episodes about a month before they
Speaker 1: come out, so it is entirely possible that some of
Speaker 1: the stuff I covered today will already be a bit
Speaker 1: out of date by the time the show publishes. But
Speaker 1: you can always tune in to watch me do a
Speaker 1: show live on twitch dot tv slash tech Stuff, except
Speaker 1: for today when it isn't working, but most days it
Speaker 1: is working and you can check me out. Just go
Speaker 1: to twitch dot tv slash tech Stuff and you'll find
Speaker 1: a schedule when I stream and record the show. All right,
Speaker 1: enough of all that, let's talk about the Internet. It's
Speaker 1: a little box with a light on top, and it's
Speaker 1: stored at the top of Big Ben according to the
Speaker 1: I T crowd. All right, but before there was even
Speaker 1: an Internet, there was the ARPA net. Now, this was
Speaker 1: a project launched by ARPA. ARPA was the Advanced Research
Speaker 1: Projects Agency. Today we call it DARPA. The D stands
Speaker 1: for Defense, so now it's the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Speaker 1: DERBA is in charge of research and development for the
Speaker 1: Department of Defense in the United States, and they look
Speaker 1: at lots of different things that could potentially have use
Speaker 1: in matters of defense. It doesn't necessarily have to be
Speaker 1: the primary purpose for it, but that's always part of it.
Speaker 1: So some other big DARPA initiatives besides the ARPA NET
Speaker 1: include the driverless car initiative, which is what really got
Speaker 1: us into the early days of autonomous cars. Google's driverless
Speaker 1: car really got its start as a project under this
Speaker 1: uh there was a team from Stanford that competed in
Speaker 1: a DARPA Grand Challenge, and a lot of those folks
Speaker 1: went on to work for Google. But there are other
Speaker 1: ones as well, including some interesting stuff about ways to
Speaker 1: bio hack a brain so that you can learn better.
Speaker 1: You'll have to check out Forward Thinking to learn more
Speaker 1: about that. But ARPA was really interested in developing technologies
Speaker 1: that would allow computer systems to communicate with each other.
Speaker 1: This would obviously increase the value and power of computer systems.
Speaker 1: If you could have different research facilities that are across
Speaker 1: the United States from one another sending information back and
Speaker 1: forth via computer directly. Then that would be a very
Speaker 1: powerful tool. And uh, ultimately you could even see other
Speaker 1: applications such as having a decentralized network where if part
Speaker 1: of the network were to fail for some reason, let's
Speaker 1: say there was a massive power failure on part of
Speaker 1: the United States, the rest of the network could continue
Speaker 1: to function, but they needed to invent it. There wasn't
Speaker 1: anything in place at that time that could allow it,
Speaker 1: and so to do this they had to hire a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of really smart people to design the algorithms
Speaker 1: and protocols that would allow for communication even between computers
Speaker 1: that didn't use the same programming languages. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: if you had two different computers that worked on vastly
Speaker 1: different architectures and languages, you still had to be able
Speaker 1: to let them communicate with each other. So you had
Speaker 1: to invent kind of a common set of rules that
Speaker 1: both could follow and have meaningful communication. So these techniques
Speaker 1: eventually would evolve into the foundation for the Internet itself, um,
Speaker 1: although some of them would go through many evolutions before
Speaker 1: they turned into the stuff that is, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of the the software backbone for the Internet. Now, this
Speaker 1: entire project started here in the United States, and that's
Speaker 1: kind of why I mentioned the US is where the
Speaker 1: Internet was born, because the Arpanet was sort of a
Speaker 1: predecessor to the Internet UH and eventually was incorporated into
Speaker 1: the Internet in some extent to some extent rather and
Speaker 1: UH before it was dismantled officially, it was in the
Speaker 1: U S where engineers built this technology that makes the
Speaker 1: Internet possible. Though it's important to point out that other
Speaker 1: key elements of today's Internet, such as the Worldwide Web,
Speaker 1: those originated in other countries. So it's not like the
Speaker 1: US had a lock on all things Internet, but this
Speaker 1: is where it got its start. Now, one thing that's
Speaker 1: our relatively simple concept is just the basic idea of
Speaker 1: net neutrality. The term was popularized and possibly coined by
Speaker 1: Tim Wu who is a law professor, although originally it
Speaker 1: was called network neutrality. He wrote a paper in two
Speaker 1: thousand three about this idea, and he defined it in
Speaker 1: terms of assuming a non discriminatory stance on Internet traffic
Speaker 1: at the Internet service provider level. So that's a fancy
Speaker 1: way of saying that Internet service providers I s p
Speaker 1: s the companies that actually provide the access to the
Speaker 1: Internet so that you can get on there and watch
Speaker 1: your YouTube videos and subscribe to your podcasts, and do
Speaker 1: your work and send your email and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. They wouldn't be allowed to discriminate against any
Speaker 1: type of traffic, no matter where it was coming from,
Speaker 1: if they were part of the Internet. That's the idea
Speaker 1: of net neutrality. Everyone plays fair. Everyone allows everyone else
Speaker 1: to UH to send information across the networks. Otherwise than
Speaker 1: the Internet breaks. If you don't have net neutrality, then
Speaker 1: you have all these different UH relationships between entities that
Speaker 1: make it difficult, if not impossible, to operate the Internet
Speaker 1: in a reasonable fashion. So net neutrality in part is
Speaker 1: kind of a necessity, at least at a certain level. Now.
Speaker 1: Lawrence Lessig, who's a Harvard law professor, said net neutrality
Speaker 1: was all about single principle he called E two E
Speaker 1: and that's E the numeral two and the letter E
Speaker 1: again that stands for end to end. So in other words,
Speaker 1: he's saying, it doesn't matter what entities you're talking about,
Speaker 1: whether it's a server and a server, whether it's an
Speaker 1: I s P and an I s P, whether it's
Speaker 1: a computer and a web server or a handheld device
Speaker 1: like a smartphone and an application and server. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what the entities are. It should just be neutral.
Speaker 1: The Internet should be a dumb neutral conduit for information,
Speaker 1: no matter whether information starts or ends its journey. In practice,
Speaker 1: this means that you, as an Internet user, should be
Speaker 1: able to access any and all information without discrimination. Now,
Speaker 1: one little complication in this is that not all information
Speaker 1: is strictly legal, at least not in every country, or
Speaker 1: it might be illegal to distribute the information. Maybe saying
Speaker 1: the information is illegal itself is a little weird, but
Speaker 1: it's illegal to distribute it uh, or, as is more
Speaker 1: common in the United States, some uses of the Internet
Speaker 1: are illegal because they involve other illegal activities. So using
Speaker 1: the Internet to sell illegal goods like weapons or drugs
Speaker 1: without the proper licensing and the proper authorization, that would
Speaker 1: be a good example there. So those would be exceptions
Speaker 1: to of this idea. But let's eliminate all the illegal
Speaker 1: stuff for the time being and just talk about legal data.
Speaker 1: We're gonna make an assumption that the information we're talking
Speaker 1: about for most of this podcast is all on the
Speaker 1: up and up. So this isn't like stolen information. It's
Speaker 1: not uh, you know, illegal for other means, it's standard
Speaker 1: stuff and it should be treated neutral e. Net neutrality
Speaker 1: is a state in which all of this data gets
Speaker 1: treated the same way. None of it gets preferential treatment,
Speaker 1: none of it gets penalized. So it shouldn't matter what
Speaker 1: sort of device you use to access the Internet, whatever
Speaker 1: it is, it should work just fine on every I
Speaker 1: s P. That's another aspect of net neutrality. Whether it's
Speaker 1: a laptop, a desktop, tablet, smartphone, console, or other device,
Speaker 1: you should be able to connect it to the Internet,
Speaker 1: assuming of course, that the device itself isn't breaking any laws,
Speaker 1: or there's not some other issue like you're trying to
Speaker 1: overload the network or whatever. Net neutrality covers all of
Speaker 1: those different aspects. You should be able to act, says,
Speaker 1: any information originating from any web server, on any device,
Speaker 1: on any network. Now, the history of net neutrality has
Speaker 1: been a really bumpy one. Back in two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: the Associated Press published accusations that Comcast, a major Internet
Speaker 1: service provider here in the United States, have been blocking
Speaker 1: some customers from using BitTorrent software to download videos, and
Speaker 1: that Comcast really wanted to stifle anything that competed with
Speaker 1: its own video on demand service. So using BitTorrent by
Speaker 1: itself is not illegal. You could use BitTorrent to download
Speaker 1: perfectly legal content. Let's say that someone has produced a
Speaker 1: video that isn't isn't violating copyright law. It's their own
Speaker 1: original work and they've decided they wanted to distribute it
Speaker 1: via BitTorrent. BitTorrent is just ap peer to peer sharing service.
Speaker 1: It has nothing to do with the actual content, sort
Speaker 1: of like the Internet itself. You wouldn't say the Internet
Speaker 1: is all about ending illegal stuff from one place to another,
Speaker 1: even though a lot of people use the Internet to
Speaker 1: do that. That's not what the Internet actually is. The
Speaker 1: same is true for bit Torrent. BitTorrent is a method
Speaker 1: of sending information using peer to peer networks. It doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that you're using it to steal stuff. Well,
Speaker 1: Comcast was being accused of throttling the data transfers of
Speaker 1: people using BitTorrent software. Essentially, the accusation said, Comcast detected
Speaker 1: these customers, Comcast customers, we're using bit torrent software. They
Speaker 1: were connecting with other bit torrent users, and so they
Speaker 1: would find their connections slowed down dramatically whenever they were
Speaker 1: using BitTorrent, And meanwhile Comcast was pushing its own video
Speaker 1: on demand service saying, hey, you should just buy the
Speaker 1: videos straight from US. Public interest groups would eventually get
Speaker 1: in touch with the f c C here in the
Speaker 1: United States, the FCC kind of sort of oversaw I
Speaker 1: s p S. And I say kind of sort of
Speaker 1: because at the time there wasn't a real strong argument
Speaker 1: to be made that the FCC had that sort of domain.
Speaker 1: It was sort of in their domain, but there were
Speaker 1: no formal laws or regulations that put the FCC in charge. Now,
Speaker 1: the FCC argued that Comcast, which was supposed to act
Speaker 1: as a neutral carrier of information, was using anti competitive
Speaker 1: practices to suppress a competing service. And so there was
Speaker 1: a vote and the f c C passed a three
Speaker 1: to two vote against Comcasts. So f CC's board, as
Speaker 1: you know, five members, and what they would vote on
Speaker 1: these issues about whether or not a company had violated
Speaker 1: some rule or regulation and then determine what what steps
Speaker 1: should be taken in response to that. In this case,
Speaker 1: it was a close vote three to two. Two Democrats
Speaker 1: and a Republican voted against Comcast. It was actually a
Speaker 1: majority Republican board at that time. So the f c
Speaker 1: C said to Comcast, hey stop it, use guys, but
Speaker 1: they didn't find Comcasts. They just demanded that Comcast halt
Speaker 1: this behavior, that they stopped throttling customers. Comcasts response was
Speaker 1: you aren't the boss of me, and I'm gonna sue you.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what happened. So this lawsuit last several
Speaker 1: years and in two a federal court dismissed the fccs
Speaker 1: earlier ruling. Now why did they do that, Well, the
Speaker 1: FCC was claiming that under Title one of a Communications
Speaker 1: Act they would be able to do this, but it
Speaker 1: really was a pretty loose interpretation of the law, and
Speaker 1: the federal court said the FCC just did not have
Speaker 1: the authority to slap Comcasts risks in the first place.
Speaker 1: So even though Comcast wasn't fined, the essentially what the
Speaker 1: federal court was say was, you can't even reprimand Comcast,
Speaker 1: you don't have that authority. You're not you're not in
Speaker 1: charge of this. Uh. It would be like someone you
Speaker 1: know telling you that you need to pull over for speeding,
Speaker 1: but they're not a police officer. It would be weird.
Speaker 1: It's not really their job. Well, later that year, the
Speaker 1: f c C passed some official regulations on net neutrality.
Speaker 1: So essentially, what the FCC was trying to do was say, hey,
Speaker 1: we totally have the authority to do this. They were
Speaker 1: attempting to codify rules they had set up for real zes.
Speaker 1: But then Verizon sued the f c C and said,
Speaker 1: you can't do that. You don't have the authority to
Speaker 1: set these regulations, and you're passing rules that you don't
Speaker 1: get to pass, so stop it now. The Federal Court
Speaker 1: agreed once again with the industry and said the FCC
Speaker 1: does not have that authority now. Eventually, this led to
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure on the FCC to create real
Speaker 1: rules for net neutrality deep and there was talk for
Speaker 1: a while of something that was more of a conciliatory approach,
Speaker 1: but the Obama administration in two thousand and fourteen put
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure on the FCC to draw up
Speaker 1: more stringent rules about net neutrality, and so that eventually
Speaker 1: led to the Open Internet Order of I'm gonna talk
Speaker 1: more about that later in this episode and give you
Speaker 1: more details about what that Open Internet Order really was
Speaker 1: all about. But The important thing to remember right now
Speaker 1: is that the industry responded by challenging this order and
Speaker 1: trying to take it to courts, but so far the
Speaker 1: courts have upheld the FCCS ruling. They said that everything
Speaker 1: is technically legal here with a recent court decision declining
Speaker 1: to re hear the arguments. So essentially, the industry appealed
Speaker 1: this decision. The higher court said, no, we're not gonna
Speaker 1: bother listening to this because we agree with the lower court,
Speaker 1: or rather, we don't see an to re hear this case.
Speaker 1: And a lot of big is s p s got
Speaker 1: a little mad about this, and there's now a move
Speaker 1: to move this case all the way up to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. Now, in addition, with a change of administrations
Speaker 1: in the United States government, you may have heard something
Speaker 1: about that over the last year or so, we're looking
Speaker 1: at yet another revision of the rules. But I'm going
Speaker 1: to get into all of that a bit later in
Speaker 1: this podcast. Now, the reason all of this is important
Speaker 1: is because the Internet is a network of networks. That's
Speaker 1: how it started and that's what it is now. Although
Speaker 1: the details have changed significantly. The network of networks doesn't
Speaker 1: work exactly the same way it did when the Internet
Speaker 1: was a brand new, little baby. You could make a
Speaker 1: persuasive argument that the old definition of net neutrality isn't
Speaker 1: really an accurate argument to make these days. And that's
Speaker 1: because many entities like Google or Amazon or Netflix have
Speaker 1: their systems embedded into the infrastructure on the Internet in
Speaker 1: ways that weren't the case in the early days. So
Speaker 1: this gets back to Internet service providers. These networks that
Speaker 1: allow the connections of customers, whether those customers are people
Speaker 1: like you and me, if their businesses, if there are
Speaker 1: other I s p s that are lowered down on
Speaker 1: the chain, they there. These are the companies that allow
Speaker 1: the inner connections on the Internet. So let's take a
Speaker 1: look at how things used to be and compared to
Speaker 1: how things are now to kind of understand why the
Speaker 1: argument of net neutrality is changing a little bit. First
Speaker 1: of all, no one owns the Internet as a whole,
Speaker 1: because the Internet is a bunch of different components owned
Speaker 1: by a bunch of different companies. So it's it's not
Speaker 1: like a car where you could have one person be
Speaker 1: the owner, or even one person to be the manufacturer.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a huge complicated machine and different intoities
Speaker 1: own different parts of this machine. No one has the
Speaker 1: say of how it should be run. Like there's no
Speaker 1: one who has controlling interest in the Internet, but the
Speaker 1: actual infrastructure is owned by a bunch of different companies
Speaker 1: and other entities. Internet service providers run the networks that
Speaker 1: allow customers to connect transmit received data over the Internet.
Speaker 1: So if each I s P was totally independent, as
Speaker 1: in it was its own network and it did not
Speaker 1: have any connectivity to other networks, so this is not
Speaker 1: an Internet, this is just a a single network, well,
Speaker 1: you would only be able to access the stuff that
Speaker 1: was connected through that specific I s P. So let's
Speaker 1: say you are a customer of I s P A,
Speaker 1: but Netflix was only on I s P B. Well,
Speaker 1: that would mean you wouldn't be able to watch Netflix. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: the Internet is the network of all these networks together,
Speaker 1: and so they connect to each other through network access
Speaker 1: points or n A P S naps. Man and NAP
Speaker 1: sounds good right about now? Well, naps are exchanges that
Speaker 1: allow traffic to switch from one network to another in
Speaker 1: its journey from origin to destination. So using the Internet,
Speaker 1: you could watch Netflix even if you're on I s
Speaker 1: P A. Netflix is on I s p B. When
Speaker 1: you send that request, it goes through one of these
Speaker 1: network access points, switches over from one network to another,
Speaker 1: gets the go ahead from the server on I s
Speaker 1: p B. The information is sent back more or less
Speaker 1: in a reverse path from the one that your request took.
Speaker 1: Keeping in mind that the way the Internet works, the
Speaker 1: information branches out in all sorts of different ways. It's
Speaker 1: not like it's a single pathway from point A to
Speaker 1: point B and you would still be able to watch it.
Speaker 1: That's in the old days. Uh. These naps are exchanges
Speaker 1: that allow all that journey to happen, you know, for
Speaker 1: the data to switch from one network to another. Routers
Speaker 1: are the devices that take care of traffic control, sending
Speaker 1: data where it's need and not sending it where it
Speaker 1: is not needed. That's equally important because you don't want
Speaker 1: to have superfluous data running around the Internet gumming things up.
Speaker 1: There is a limited carrying capacity to the Internet. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's huge, but you know, if you were to send
Speaker 1: an enormous amount of data to a very specific section
Speaker 1: of the Internet at a specific time, you could overload things.
Speaker 1: You can make stuff slow down, you can make systems crash,
Speaker 1: so rollers are very important to make sure that that
Speaker 1: data is going where it needs to go and only
Speaker 1: where it needs to go. In the early days the Internet,
Speaker 1: there were hundreds of companies that were interconnected to create
Speaker 1: this network, and the distribution of traffic was pretty you know, decent,
Speaker 1: it's pretty even. There weren't a few, just a few
Speaker 1: entities dominating traffic across the Internet. It was distributed fairly evenly,
Speaker 1: and that neutrality was real concerned because if someone didn't
Speaker 1: play ball, it kind of ruined it for everyone else. Well,
Speaker 1: I got more to say about the basics of the
Speaker 1: Internet and how net neutrality plays into it, but before
Speaker 1: I jump into more of that, let's take a quick
Speaker 1: break to thank our sponsor. Okay, Now, for the Internet
Speaker 1: to work, these various Internet service providers have to agree
Speaker 1: to carry each other's traffic, and typically we call this
Speaker 1: process peering, where companies will peer with one another, whether
Speaker 1: it's two I s p s or an I s
Speaker 1: P and an edge provider. Edge providers being like the
Speaker 1: content providers that are creating the stuff that people are
Speaker 1: actually trying to access. So the I s P s
Speaker 1: you can think of that as like almost like a
Speaker 1: highway system and the the edge providers being like all
Speaker 1: the stuff along the highways that you want to go to,
Speaker 1: and peering involves drawing up an agreement where the various
Speaker 1: decent question will allow for the transfer of data coming
Speaker 1: from one source to pass over to the other source,
Speaker 1: for one network to pass over into the other network. Basically,
Speaker 1: if you were a smaller Internet service provider, you would
Speaker 1: have to pay a certain amount per chunk of data
Speaker 1: up to larger Internet service providers that are further upstream
Speaker 1: of you. If a smaller I s P gets big enough,
Speaker 1: if it grows over time, it could end up creating
Speaker 1: that same arrangement with smaller I s p s that
Speaker 1: are downstream of it, and it could arrange for a
Speaker 1: more favorable rate with the larger upstream I s p s.
Speaker 1: If it got big enough, it could have the leverage
Speaker 1: to say, hey, let's rework this deal, or even if
Speaker 1: they got big enough, arrange for free transfers of data
Speaker 1: if the size and traffic between the two I s
Speaker 1: p s is similar enough. Alright, so let's say that
Speaker 1: you are the head of a big old Internet corporation
Speaker 1: and your company has assets and several different parts of
Speaker 1: the Internet so your computers and connections make up to
Speaker 1: the Internet's backbone, and data crosses over your machines all
Speaker 1: the time, so you are actually part of the infrastructure
Speaker 1: that information uses in order to get from point A
Speaker 1: to point B. Some of that data comes from you,
Speaker 1: so you happen to have stuff within your own network
Speaker 1: that you can deliver to people who are on your network. Uh,
Speaker 1: you have your own servers services, maybe you have like
Speaker 1: an email client, maybe some website sites, but a lot
Speaker 1: of data actually comes from other sources, including people who
Speaker 1: are in direct competition with you. Now, wouldn't it be
Speaker 1: nice if you're the head of this large corporation if
Speaker 1: you could steer people to using your own in house
Speaker 1: products like your email services, your websites, etcetera, rather than
Speaker 1: a competitor's services. You could have people use your email client,
Speaker 1: visit your streaming video service, and go to your web
Speaker 1: pages for news. You'd collect revenue from that through ads
Speaker 1: served against the services. You'd end up saving money because
Speaker 1: people are coming to you run then you going to them.
Speaker 1: You can discourage people from using competitors products as a result,
Speaker 1: or you could do something else, maybe you charge your
Speaker 1: competitors a hefty premium to get access to customers on
Speaker 1: your network. So you're the head of is s P
Speaker 1: A and I s p B comes to you and says, hey,
Speaker 1: we've got a lot of customers who want to access
Speaker 1: these servers. Those servers are part of your network. What
Speaker 1: do we have to do to make that happen? And
Speaker 1: you say, well, uh, you'll have to pay me. If
Speaker 1: you don't pay me, I'll make sure it's a super
Speaker 1: slow connection and your customers will be able to access
Speaker 1: the information, but it will be a very negative experience.
Speaker 1: They will hate it, it will take forever, it will
Speaker 1: buffer a lot for streaming video, or you know, you
Speaker 1: pony up the cash and then everyone's gonna get super
Speaker 1: fast internet access from me. It's gonna be awesome. So um,
Speaker 1: if you were to say, hey, Netflix, I'm happy to
Speaker 1: send people Season two a fuller house, but if you
Speaker 1: want them to have a good experience, you got a
Speaker 1: pony up that cash so the stream get the fast
Speaker 1: length of traffic. Otherwise I'm just gonna throw all that data,
Speaker 1: keep it on my own network, keep everything nice and clear,
Speaker 1: and your customers will experience lots of buffering issues and
Speaker 1: then everyone's gonna say, hey, why are we even using
Speaker 1: this I s P. Let's use this other I s P.
Speaker 1: Because I hear that I can watch Fuller House with
Speaker 1: less buffering, And Jesse is gonna say, oh, mercy, well,
Speaker 1: how am I going to see that if I'm not
Speaker 1: logged in? But that would violate the spirit of the
Speaker 1: net neutrality. If you gave your own data preferential treatment
Speaker 1: and allowed it to stream faster to customers, and you
Speaker 1: throttled anything from your competitors, then people using your service
Speaker 1: wouldn't have fair equal access to all information on the
Speaker 1: Internet when using your network. And that's how a lot
Speaker 1: of people frame the net neutrality argument these days, that
Speaker 1: there's just this one big problem with that framing. It's
Speaker 1: not really an accurate description of what's actually happening. On
Speaker 1: a large scale. Over time, a relatively small number of
Speaker 1: companies began to dominate the amount of traffic that was
Speaker 1: moving across the Internet. In other words, a smaller number
Speaker 1: of companies were creating a larger amount of the data
Speaker 1: that gets shuffled around across the Internet. Big companies like Google, Netflix,
Speaker 1: and other major players began to establish what are called
Speaker 1: content delivery networks or c d NS now content delivery
Speaker 1: network is a network of computer servers that are within
Speaker 1: an I s P S network and they can deliver
Speaker 1: specific content directly to that I s P S customers
Speaker 1: without the need for traveling across appeared network from another
Speaker 1: I s P. So, going back to I s P
Speaker 1: A versus I s P B, if you build a
Speaker 1: c d N in both of those I s P
Speaker 1: S networks, so you've got one in I s P
Speaker 1: A and one in I s P B, those respective
Speaker 1: Internet service provider customers can access your services very very
Speaker 1: quickly because you've you've placed them close to the destination,
Speaker 1: close to being a relative term, because we're talking about uh,
Speaker 1: you know, networks which are not really it's not analogous
Speaker 1: to a physical location. But if you have it within
Speaker 1: that I s P there are fewer gateways to have
Speaker 1: to pass through, so you speed up the process. You
Speaker 1: create a better user experience, especially for stuff that uses
Speaker 1: a lot of data and needs to stream very quickly.
Speaker 1: So stuff like ultra high definition video, you obviously want
Speaker 1: that to get to your customers as quickly as it can.
Speaker 1: Otherwise you've got lots of buffering issues, and that's not
Speaker 1: a very good experience from a consumer point of view.
Speaker 1: So if you're someone like YouTube or Netflix, you want
Speaker 1: to establish these uh c d ns, these content delivery
Speaker 1: networks inside as many major I s p s as
Speaker 1: you possibly can to get uh that information to customers
Speaker 1: much more quickly. Uh So, let's compare the old way
Speaker 1: of doing things with a new way. So back in
Speaker 1: the early days of the Internet, your web company servers
Speaker 1: would be connected to I s P A, and your
Speaker 1: customers would access your service by connecting to your web
Speaker 1: server over the Internet. Any of your customers who are
Speaker 1: also I s P A customers would have a pretty
Speaker 1: direct connection because you're all on the same network. But
Speaker 1: if I were your customer and I used I s
Speaker 1: P B, my request would have to pass through a
Speaker 1: piered connection between my I s P and your I
Speaker 1: s P before it reached your web server, and any
Speaker 1: data you said back to me would likewise have to
Speaker 1: go through that piered connection, And if my I s
Speaker 1: P and your I s P got to a spat,
Speaker 1: that could become a problem. But c d n s
Speaker 1: allow entities to build web servers within different I s
Speaker 1: p s, so you get that direct connection and you
Speaker 1: can bypass this need for those peered connections, companies like Google, Netflix,
Speaker 1: and Facebook, I'll have private c d n s to
Speaker 1: help them get this stated to you quickly. There are
Speaker 1: also other c d n s that are run by
Speaker 1: other companies that essentially rent out space two tenants. So
Speaker 1: let's say that you have a big c d N
Speaker 1: within Comcasts network and you say, hey, if you want
Speaker 1: your service to get to Comcast customers faster, you can
Speaker 1: rent out space on our machines which are part of
Speaker 1: this content delivery network within Comcasts network, and that will
Speaker 1: get to the Comcast customers smoothly. You just had to
Speaker 1: pay us and we'll host your stuff. So why does
Speaker 1: this matter? Because the old argument about net neutrality doesn't
Speaker 1: quite work in a world where thirty companies provide half
Speaker 1: of all the Internet's traffic. Think about that. Just a
Speaker 1: little more than two dozen companies comprise half of the
Speaker 1: Internet's traffic, with Netflix leading the charge. Most of those
Speaker 1: companies operate c d N or they partner with one
Speaker 1: of those companies I just talked about that have their
Speaker 1: own c d ns, and you don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about I S p B throttling stuff coming from S
Speaker 1: P A. Because both B and A have all the
Speaker 1: information within their own respective networks. The fast lane argument
Speaker 1: is less of a problem than it used to be
Speaker 1: because we already have this established hierarchy of major companies
Speaker 1: that in itself is its own problem because a lot
Speaker 1: of people point out by having these enormous established companies
Speaker 1: that are able to take advantage of this, it discourages
Speaker 1: competition from smaller companies that don't have those same advantages.
Speaker 1: So a different problem is on the rise, and this
Speaker 1: one is more related to uh, well, it's kind of
Speaker 1: related to the fast lane issue, but with some twists.
Speaker 1: The big I s p s that have swallowed up
Speaker 1: most of the smaller ones have a real tight grip
Speaker 1: on access to the Internet. They would very much like
Speaker 1: to build their own c d n s. So Comcast
Speaker 1: has talked about this, making their own content delivery networks
Speaker 1: within their their networks, and then they would charge companies
Speaker 1: to use those c d n s. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: they're doing kind of what I was talking about with
Speaker 1: those other companies that would say, hey, we will rent
Speaker 1: out space to you, except this would be the actual
Speaker 1: Internet service provider allowing that, So kind of having your
Speaker 1: cake and eating it too. If you were to launch
Speaker 1: an internet startup company and you felt like you needed
Speaker 1: to have that super fast access to Comcast customers, uh
Speaker 1: you like, maybe you're trying to deliver that ultra high
Speaker 1: definition videos experience. You might need to be in a
Speaker 1: c d N to have reliable access to an I
Speaker 1: S B S customers. But you're not big enough to
Speaker 1: build your own one, so you can't be like Google
Speaker 1: or Facebook or Netflix. You aren't haven't been around long enough,
Speaker 1: you can't establish that, so you have to cut a
Speaker 1: deal with someone who already has a c d N
Speaker 1: and you have to rent space there. Essentially, the result
Speaker 1: is that internet service providers could be getting paid twice
Speaker 1: for all the data going across their networks. They get
Speaker 1: one fee from their subscribers, their actual regular customers who
Speaker 1: are consuming data, and another fee from the companies that
Speaker 1: are providing data. So you can charge the for the
Speaker 1: same message two times. It's like the old days with telegrams.
Speaker 1: In fact, this story eventually goes all the way back
Speaker 1: to the telegram days. If you listen to the Common
Speaker 1: Carrier episode, you learn more about it, and it really
Speaker 1: it goes back even further than that. It goes to
Speaker 1: the railroad days, but telegram days. You know, there were
Speaker 1: arguments about telegram companies charging once to send a message
Speaker 1: at once for the receiving of the message, so each
Speaker 1: message was getting billed twice. People said, that's not very fair. Well,
Speaker 1: the same thing is kind of showing up here with
Speaker 1: this concept of an I s P operating its own
Speaker 1: content delivery network. So how can we avoid such a future. Well,
Speaker 1: one thing that would be nice is more competition in
Speaker 1: the internet service provider space. Competition would push Internet service
Speaker 1: providers to stay nim bowl and they wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to throw their weight around so much because if they did,
Speaker 1: customers could say, well, I don't want to work with
Speaker 1: this company anymore. I'm gonna go and switch to their competitor,
Speaker 1: who and their competitors not engaged in this kind of behavior.
Speaker 1: So that that threat of competition, that threat of losing
Speaker 1: customers to someone else that's not doing the messed up
Speaker 1: stuff you're doing, would help a lot. But we don't
Speaker 1: have a whole lot of competition, particularly here in the
Speaker 1: United States. So short of breaking up companies or placing
Speaker 1: hefty regulations on how Internet service providers operate, this is
Speaker 1: a long shot. Now, as I record this podcast, there
Speaker 1: are hearings in the United States Congress that could overturn
Speaker 1: large portions of the two thousand fifteen Open Internet Order.
Speaker 1: There's also discussions within the f c C itself that
Speaker 1: would overturn this decision, this twenty decision. So the one
Speaker 1: within the f c C is titled Restoring in Internet Freedom, which, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I I like, there was a tweet I saw.
Speaker 1: I wish I could remember the person who said it,
Speaker 1: but the tweet said essentially, anytime you see a large
Speaker 1: corporation using the word freedom within some legislation, or any
Speaker 1: entity within politics using the word freedom within its legislation,
Speaker 1: it usually means freedom for big companies, not for actual citizens,
Speaker 1: which is a little cynical and a lot true. Bottom line,
Speaker 1: Restoring Internet Freedom Act is some loaded language, but then
Speaker 1: so is open Internet. So what's actually going on. Well,
Speaker 1: back in the f c C reclassified broadband Internet Access
Speaker 1: service or bias. That's not me being biased, that's just
Speaker 1: what the acronym says, broadband Internet access service. They reclassified
Speaker 1: them as telecommunications services, which meant that companies in that
Speaker 1: field would be governed by the rules of Titled two
Speaker 1: of the Communications Act of nineteen four. Now, you remember
Speaker 1: before the FCC tried to uh to enforce regulations under
Speaker 1: Title one of the Communications Act, but that didn't really
Speaker 1: give the FCC the authority they needed to do that,
Speaker 1: and that's why those decisions got overturned in federal courts.
Speaker 1: So FCC said, well, that's fine, we'll just well, we
Speaker 1: have to reclassify these companies, these broadband Internet access services
Speaker 1: as telecommunications companies. That will put them under Title two,
Speaker 1: which we have the authority to oversee that has been
Speaker 1: established by law. And this was something that people have
Speaker 1: been bandying about for a few years, but the FCC
Speaker 1: hadn't really taken a move on it because it was
Speaker 1: seen as being a little extreme. However, the Obama administration
Speaker 1: was putting in a lot of pressure on the FCC,
Speaker 1: so eventually they did do this. Now, these rules establish
Speaker 1: the role of common carriers, and again that concept dates
Speaker 1: back to the railroad days. Essentially, the rules said you
Speaker 1: could not establish different prices for different people, So you
Speaker 1: couldn't charge one group of people five dollars a ticket
Speaker 1: just because of who they were, and then a different
Speaker 1: group of people you would charge ten dollars a ticket
Speaker 1: or fifteen dollars a ticket just because of who they were.
Speaker 1: Nor were you allowed to discriminate against people and refuse
Speaker 1: them service if they were following the rules and they
Speaker 1: had the money for a ticket. So if I show
Speaker 1: up to your train and I got five dollars in
Speaker 1: hand and I'm not outwardly breaking any rules, you would
Speaker 1: not be allowed to say, oh, no, I'm sorry, you
Speaker 1: can't ride this train. And the reason for that was
Speaker 1: because the railroads have been uh determined to be common carriers.
Speaker 1: They were too important for the good of the United
Speaker 1: States to operate as completely private entities. The same thing
Speaker 1: is true for telecommunications, because you had all these different
Speaker 1: communications lines that were stretching from state to state, and
Speaker 1: you had state governments that were kind of getting into
Speaker 1: argument with one another, and the federal government stepped in
Speaker 1: and said, all right, here's the deal. You can't do
Speaker 1: this because it's too important to the health of the country.
Speaker 1: So this was kind of another step on that on
Speaker 1: that pathway to classify Internet as that same sort of
Speaker 1: um experience or service. Basically, you have to play nice
Speaker 1: now putting bias operators under title to gave the FCC
Speaker 1: authority to enforce rules. They could actually enforce the stuff
Speaker 1: that they were creating. They could create rules and they
Speaker 1: can enforce them because Title to gives them that authority
Speaker 1: as long as it's classified under titled too. Uh So
Speaker 1: that will allow them to get around those issues they
Speaker 1: had had earlier in net neutrality cases where the courts
Speaker 1: kept on saying, hey, you like totally don't have the
Speaker 1: authority to do that thing. By reclassifying bias companies as
Speaker 1: telecommunications companies, the FCC gained that authority over them. Now.
Speaker 1: The first provision in the Open Internet or OR established
Speaker 1: that bias operators would not be allowed to block access
Speaker 1: to legal content, apps, services, or non harmful devices subject
Speaker 1: to reasonable network management. So an I s P like
Speaker 1: a T and T couldn't deny customers the ability to
Speaker 1: connect to a specific brand of laptop on their networks
Speaker 1: or block any specific content from a competitor because of
Speaker 1: this specific rule. The second provision stated that bias companies
Speaker 1: couldn't throttle any content purposefully barring any network management issues. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, a T T couldn't say, all right, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can access that service that's on Comcasts network, but
Speaker 1: we're just gonna put the brakes on it. So that's
Speaker 1: really unpleasant and there's no incentive to use that service.
Speaker 1: That was against the rules according to the second provision,
Speaker 1: so it wouldn't allow a company to prioritize its own
Speaker 1: services over that of others. The idea being that any
Speaker 1: consumer would have equal opportunity to use whichever service he
Speaker 1: or she preferred across the entirety of the Internet. It
Speaker 1: might be the same as their I s p s,
Speaker 1: or it might be someone else. The third provisions stated
Speaker 1: that bias operators couldn't operate with paid prioritization. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, you're not supposed to have like a super
Speaker 1: secret v I P line that people could pay to
Speaker 1: use and get the fast track to consumers. And you
Speaker 1: may have heard some some talk about this particular one
Speaker 1: ideas like, you know, I run a ultra high definition
Speaker 1: streaming service, so I want to pay a little extra
Speaker 1: money to the I s p s to make sure
Speaker 1: that my traffic is going to consumers um in a
Speaker 1: in a fast lane. This is the big fast lane discussion. Now,
Speaker 1: this rule ends up being sidestepped by the content delivery
Speaker 1: network issue I talked about earlier. If you build content
Speaker 1: delivery networks within I s p s, then you kind
Speaker 1: of end up not having to worry about this as much.
Speaker 1: But then only the the entities that have huge amounts
Speaker 1: of money can afford to do that in the first place.
Speaker 1: And unlike the other two rules, there's no exception here
Speaker 1: for reasonable network management. So for the other two provisions,
Speaker 1: if you are needing to manage your network because of
Speaker 1: UH an imbalance in traffic, you are allowed to break
Speaker 1: those first two provisions, providing you can actually say I
Speaker 1: had to do it because otherwise our our network traffic
Speaker 1: would have been so great as to cause an overall
Speaker 1: collapse and that's a bad thing. The third provision, you
Speaker 1: couldn't even do that. There was no rule for that.
Speaker 1: So on top of those provisions, the rules stated that
Speaker 1: biased companies couldn't quote unreasonably interfere with or unreasonably disadvantage
Speaker 1: customers abilities to select, access, and use lawful content services
Speaker 1: and devices. They also couldn't unreasonably interfere with or unreasonably
Speaker 1: disadvantage edge providers from making lawful content apps, services, or devices.
Speaker 1: So in other words, UH they couldn't couldn't meddle with
Speaker 1: either the content or the devices that were moving across
Speaker 1: their individual networks. Now today is a very different world
Speaker 1: than the one in when the FCC passed those rules,
Speaker 1: and the current administration in the United States is looking
Speaker 1: to reverse those twenty fifteen decisions. That includes reclassifying biased
Speaker 1: companies again, this time removing them from the classification of
Speaker 1: telecommunications companies and thus pulling them out from under titled two.
Speaker 1: This would put the Federal Federal Trade Commission, or f TC,
Speaker 1: in charge of overseeing claims of privacy violations or anti
Speaker 1: competitive practices among bias operators, so the FCC would no
Speaker 1: longer be in charge. Instead it would be the f
Speaker 1: t C. The critics of this move say that the
Speaker 1: FTC has very little power, is a small organization um
Speaker 1: and it isn't much of a check against bias operators.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really stand as a threat at all or
Speaker 1: a measure to keep these companies behaving properly. For one thing,
Speaker 1: the FTC doesn't have the authority to set regulations, so
Speaker 1: they can't They can't make any rules. All they can
Speaker 1: do is go after companies if it becomes clear that
Speaker 1: those companies are not following their own terms of service.
Speaker 1: With customers. So if you if your I s P
Speaker 1: is A T and T and UH, you are upset
Speaker 1: with how things are going. If the way A T
Speaker 1: and T is performing is not in direct violation of
Speaker 1: its terms of service, the FTC can't really do anything
Speaker 1: about on it. Because the FTC can't set up the rules.
Speaker 1: It gives a lot of power to the corporations. That's
Speaker 1: the complaint a lot of critics are having right now
Speaker 1: that they're saying this is a bad move because it's
Speaker 1: giving the people or the entities I should say that
Speaker 1: we're trying to make sure play by the rules, it's
Speaker 1: giving them the ability to make up the rules. So
Speaker 1: there's no sense in the whole making sure they play
Speaker 1: by the rules. If you give the person the ability
Speaker 1: to write all the rules, of course they're playing by
Speaker 1: them because they're the ones defining the rules as they
Speaker 1: go along. It could be like an enormous game of
Speaker 1: calvin Ball. It's for the three Calvinant Hobbs fans that
Speaker 1: are out there. All right, I got more to cover
Speaker 1: in the end of this episode, but before I get
Speaker 1: into that, let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor.
Speaker 1: According to the new chairman, of the f c C
Speaker 1: A Jeep Pie. The two thousand fifteen order quote put
Speaker 1: at risk online investment and innovation, threatening the very open
Speaker 1: internet it purported to preserve. Investment in broadband networks declined.
Speaker 1: Internet service providers have pulled back on plans to deploy
Speaker 1: new and upgraded infrastructure and services to consumers. End quote.
Speaker 1: So Pie's argument is that because these regulations were in place,
Speaker 1: I s p s were disinclined. They had no incentive
Speaker 1: to invest in their own infrastructure. I mean, why would
Speaker 1: they they were being regulated. Now, I have to add
Speaker 1: that I failed to find a lot of research that
Speaker 1: actually substantiates this claim. For one thing, there's just a
Speaker 1: lack of research all around. It's it's not that I'm
Speaker 1: finding conflicting reports, rather than there's just not a lot
Speaker 1: of definitive research to either support or refute it. According
Speaker 1: to I T Were World, in two thousand fifteen, broadband
Speaker 1: networks invested seventies six billion dollars in upgrading networks. Now,
Speaker 1: this was a slight decrease from two numbers, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't a dramatic decline. In fact, was the highest total
Speaker 1: spit on infrastructure over the records of the Internet was
Speaker 1: the second highest, so it's not like numbers dropped precipitously.
Speaker 1: They dipped. So it's unclear if there really is a
Speaker 1: risk to investment and innovation. There might be, but we
Speaker 1: don't have enough information there. There's not enough data to
Speaker 1: show an actual trend yet. So I'm not saying the
Speaker 1: FCC chairman's conclusion is necessarily wrong. It could be right.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying it's not supported by enough evidence to
Speaker 1: be a firm conclusion. It may well be that the
Speaker 1: Open Internet Order is doing exactly what PIE says it
Speaker 1: is doing, but it doesn't seem like we actually have
Speaker 1: the information to draw that conclusion yet. So what we
Speaker 1: really need is more research to see are these companies
Speaker 1: pulling back from investing in their infrastructure. Have they been
Speaker 1: given an incentive to not invest back in the infrastructure?
Speaker 1: Is that actually harming consumers? We don't know. There's not
Speaker 1: been enough data yet. The proposal that PIE has drafted
Speaker 1: also says that the rules were established quote despite virtually
Speaker 1: no quantifiable evidence of consumer harm end quote. So here's
Speaker 1: PIE saying, look, you're these were rules that were looking
Speaker 1: for a problem that didn't exist. So as a solution
Speaker 1: searching for a problem, and since there was no evidence
Speaker 1: of any consumers actually being harmed, then the rules aren't
Speaker 1: really protecting anybody, And that's that's an interesting argument to say, like,
Speaker 1: if there's nothing wrong happening, then why do we have
Speaker 1: to make regulation shans? Granted, if the regulations just exist
Speaker 1: but aren't forcing any ongoing expense from the government, you
Speaker 1: might argue, well, where is the problem. If we've established
Speaker 1: the rules, if someone violates the rules, then we have
Speaker 1: we have something to go to. But you could also
Speaker 1: leave the argument of well, if no one's violating the rules, ever,
Speaker 1: why do we have the rules there? Um, I would
Speaker 1: counter that the decreased competition in the internet service provider
Speaker 1: market in the United States is pretty bad. This goes
Speaker 1: all the way down to the consumer facing level. So
Speaker 1: we're talking like the backbone companies all the way down
Speaker 1: to the ones that we as customers individuals in the
Speaker 1: United States would use for our internet service provider. So
Speaker 1: for example, where I live, I have one choice if
Speaker 1: I want to have broadband speeds UH. The next fastest
Speaker 1: choice I would have at my my UH option is
Speaker 1: below broadbands beat if we define it at the current
Speaker 1: standard in the United States as twenty five megabits per second.
Speaker 1: That's how the FCC defined it in So, if I
Speaker 1: look at my choice of Internet service providers, I only
Speaker 1: have one option if I want to hit broadband speeds.
Speaker 1: Everything else is sub broadband speed. That's it. That means
Speaker 1: one company has a monopoly on broadband speeds in my neighborhood,
Speaker 1: and that puts customers in my neighborhood and disadvantage. We
Speaker 1: have no alternative. If our i SP chooses to engage
Speaker 1: and behavior we find unacceptable, we don't have another option
Speaker 1: to go to that can provide us at Internet access
Speaker 1: at that same speed. We might choose to go with
Speaker 1: a slower speed, and which almost feels like we're punishing
Speaker 1: ourselves UH in order to not work with that i
Speaker 1: s P. But the ideal situation would to have would
Speaker 1: be to have a lot of competing Internet service providers
Speaker 1: with comparable capability of delivering fast Internet service to multiple customers.
Speaker 1: This would end up UH giving companies the incentive to innovate,
Speaker 1: to find ways to set themselves apart from their competitors
Speaker 1: to attract more customers. That way, customers are the ones
Speaker 1: who benefit if there are no competitors, there's no incentive
Speaker 1: for a company to do that, and customers as a
Speaker 1: result often suffer because there's nowhere else to go. You've
Speaker 1: got one choice to go to. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: the old UH Soviet Union, where if you wanted a
Speaker 1: specific product, you had to go to one place and
Speaker 1: that was the one product you could get and there
Speaker 1: were no other alternatives. It's kind of like that UH
Speaker 1: in that case. Of course, in the SO Union it
Speaker 1: was all state controlled, not corporate controlled, but otherwise it's
Speaker 1: very similar. Net neutrality and related policies are supposed to
Speaker 1: protect against this kind of behavior, particularly in a world
Speaker 1: where competition is scarce. Now, if we lived in a
Speaker 1: world where we did have that fierce competition among I
Speaker 1: s p s and markets across the world, it might
Speaker 1: not even be an issue. That neutrality might not ever
Speaker 1: be talked about, because the market would end up demanding
Speaker 1: that the companies that that benefit consumers the most would
Speaker 1: be the most successful. That gives again those incentives to
Speaker 1: the other companies to follow suit. No one would be
Speaker 1: doing stupid stuff that that limited what their customers could do,
Speaker 1: because they would lose those customers. But that's not the
Speaker 1: world we live in. I can't just switch from one
Speaker 1: to the other, and most people can't either because they
Speaker 1: don't have those options. There are too few I s
Speaker 1: p s, And we've seen numerous stories of how companies
Speaker 1: have tried to consolidate power even more through various mergers
Speaker 1: and acquisitions. Comcast was trying to buy Time Mourner for
Speaker 1: a while. That would have consolidated two massive internet service providers,
Speaker 1: and that would have been even less competition in the marketplace. Now,
Speaker 1: the companies were saying this is gonna be great for consumers,
Speaker 1: but honestly, when you don't have a lot of competition,
Speaker 1: it's not that great for consumers because why why should
Speaker 1: there be. Your consumers aren't gonna go anywhere. They have
Speaker 1: no other place to go, So do what works best
Speaker 1: to maximize your profits and not worry so much about
Speaker 1: the consumer response. That's that's the real issue there. It's
Speaker 1: pretty ugly. So what do I think is going to
Speaker 1: actually happen from all of this with the FCC moving
Speaker 1: in this direction. Well, I'm recording this in early May.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be mid May when the FCC starts to
Speaker 1: move on any sort of decisions, and uh, Meanwhile, we've
Speaker 1: got the case being pushed towards the Supreme Court to
Speaker 1: be heard. So we've got two different avenues of attack
Speaker 1: against net neutrality. First, I think the Supreme Court will
Speaker 1: decline to hear the case brought against c f c
Speaker 1: C and it's classification of I s P S under
Speaker 1: Title two. I think that case is not going to
Speaker 1: make it all the way to the Supreme Court, and
Speaker 1: I think the reason for that is the Court's going
Speaker 1: to decline to hear the case because the f c
Speaker 1: C is already considering reclassifying uh I s p S
Speaker 1: again and rolling those rules back. So I don't think
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court will hear the case because they're gonna
Speaker 1: see that this argument is essentially moot and there's no
Speaker 1: reason to to look at the case if the FCC
Speaker 1: is going to change the rules back anyway. So I
Speaker 1: suspect we will see regulations rolled back from I s
Speaker 1: P S. Deregulating is a frequent message from conservative governments.
Speaker 1: I'm not optimistic about that helping out the average consumer
Speaker 1: that I have no trouble believing it will be a
Speaker 1: huge help to the enormous businesses that are I s
Speaker 1: P S now, if this happens, it will likely take
Speaker 1: some time, as just the process for making these rules
Speaker 1: is borious and typically involves inviting input from the general public,
Speaker 1: and the last time that happened, UH, the general public
Speaker 1: overwhelmed the FCCS systems with input largely in favor of
Speaker 1: net neutrality, so we'll likely see a similar response, led
Speaker 1: by various entities on the Internet like the Electronic Frontier
Speaker 1: Foundation pushing for people to speak out in favor of
Speaker 1: net neutrality. I don't think it's going to ultimately matter
Speaker 1: in the long run. I think we're gonna see those
Speaker 1: regulations rolled back, at least to some extent, maybe not
Speaker 1: as far back as what people are proposing right now,
Speaker 1: but I don't think that I s p s will
Speaker 1: be under titled to classification for much longer. Maybe a year,
Speaker 1: that's my guess. This could lead to another discussion about
Speaker 1: fast lanes ultimately down the line, but really, as I
Speaker 1: mentioned before, it really comes down to those content distribution networks.
Speaker 1: The real fear is that big companies like Netflix, which
Speaker 1: have billions of dollars, will be able to flourish, while
Speaker 1: small competing companies that could potentially be of great interest
Speaker 1: to consumers can't get on that same page because they
Speaker 1: can't afford to essentially pay what amounts to a toll
Speaker 1: to internet access providers. Netflix can afford that, but a
Speaker 1: startup company that might be a huge hit if it
Speaker 1: had a chance, might not be able to ever get
Speaker 1: off the ground because it can't afford to play ball
Speaker 1: the way the big companies can. Now, the big companies
Speaker 1: don't want to play ball. They they're also big companies.
Speaker 1: They don't they don't want to spend money they don't
Speaker 1: have to spend. So I don't wanna come out here
Speaker 1: saying like Netflix and Google and Amazon and Facebook, they're
Speaker 1: all the good guys and the I s p s
Speaker 1: are the bad guys. Uh. Really, these are all entities
Speaker 1: that are trying to minimize expenses and maximize profits as
Speaker 1: best they can, and ultimately, we're the consumers were the
Speaker 1: ones who get squeezed by this from both sides. So
Speaker 1: don't take me the wrong way. I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: say that Netflix and Google and all those guys are
Speaker 1: are angels and the I s p s are devils.
Speaker 1: It's more like these are businesses. They have a purpose,
Speaker 1: and that purpose is to make money. Is not a
Speaker 1: moral judgment. It is just that's the purpose of a
Speaker 1: corporation is to make money, and we as consumers are
Speaker 1: the ones affected by this. If we see a definitive
Speaker 1: ruling between the time I record this episode and the
Speaker 1: time it publishes, I'll be sure to jump back in
Speaker 1: the studio and record an update to this episode. And
Speaker 1: this is the part where it will go. It will
Speaker 1: go in this section or right after it. So if
Speaker 1: you don't hear an update after this paragraph, it's because
Speaker 1: nothing definitive has happened yet, or I forgot one of
Speaker 1: the two. One of the two things happen. So that's
Speaker 1: it for this episode of Tech Stuff. Remember you can
Speaker 1: get in touch with me through email. Let me know
Speaker 1: of any suggestions you have for guests on the show
Speaker 1: for topics I might want to cover. For anything that
Speaker 1: you think deserves an update, like net neutrality. If there's
Speaker 1: another topic I've covered in the past that you field
Speaker 1: needs to have a little refresher, let me know. The
Speaker 1: address for our show is tech Stuff at how stuff
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Speaker 1: or Facebook. The handle for the show at both of
Speaker 1: those is tech Stuff h s W. Remember you can
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Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
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