BF2S Forums Net neutrality dealt a blow by a US appelate court

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

That didn't happen with South Korea.

At some point, you have to come to the realization that letting the market clear things isn't always the best idea.  Neither is a central planning scheme....

It's case by case...   and clearly, in this particular industry, central planning seems to have worked better for consumers.

In one instance and in one outlier where the population density dictated that it could work. South Korea has ten times the population density of the average nation and 15.2 times the US density. You know damn well that if this went before Congress we would be subsidizing the farmer in North Dakota whose fiber connection cost $10M to install while paying a nominal rate of $50 a month for it.

Possibly.  If you're implying that our government is too corrupt for central planning to work, then I have to admit that you might be right.

I don't think this is true of the Canadian government though.  It could probably work very well for them.  All they need is some people in power willing to actually support the idea.

Either way, it's clear that central planning isn't inherently bad -- it's just bad when the government involved is too corrupt to trust.

No, central planning is always bad. No single person or committee has the ability to understand a system as large and diverse as the United States of America. No single person or committee should ever be able or allowed to dictate how people live their lives on a day to day basis or decide how much competition they need in their life.

JohnG@lt wrote:

Let's face it, a guy keeping his file sharing programs running at max bandwidth 24/7 is putting a burden on the rest of us that we shouldn't have to suffer for.

Why is that? Turn it around and ask yourself why a person buying precisely the same product as you do should suffer punishment simply because you choose to use the product less than he does. There is nothing outrageous about flat-fee services, and they affect you in the use of many more services than just Internet service.

JohnG@lt wrote:

I can agree with caps on accounts rather than limits on individual programs or sites. You are correct when you say that if they are advertising that they offer 15mb/s that they should in fact have enough capacity that every single person in the system could download at 15mb/s simultaneously. Otherwise it's false advertising.

That would never happen. You'd be paying well in excess of $500 a month for your average cable service if your service provider's network had to be dimensioned to accommodate full concurrency.

mikkel wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Let's face it, a guy keeping his file sharing programs running at max bandwidth 24/7 is putting a burden on the rest of us that we shouldn't have to suffer for.

Why is that? Turn it around and ask yourself why a person buying precisely the same product as you do should suffer punishment simply because you choose to use the product less than he does. There is nothing outrageous about flat-fee services, and they affect you in the use of many more services than just Internet service.

JohnG@lt wrote:

I can agree with caps on accounts rather than limits on individual programs or sites. You are correct when you say that if they are advertising that they offer 15mb/s that they should in fact have enough capacity that every single person in the system could download at 15mb/s simultaneously. Otherwise it's false advertising.

That would never happen. You'd be paying well in excess of $500 a month for your average cable service if your service provider's network had to be dimensioned to accommodate full concurrency.

Then by your own logic, maxing out your bandwidth day and night should bring repercussions since the system can't handle it. They should be forced to pay the $500 a month if they're doing it.

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

I would assume the South Koreans disagree with you.

You should read The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek.

Hayek always reminded me of Ayn Rand -- very idealistic.

Reality dictates a mixed approach.  This is why the most functional economies are mixed.

No, they are mixed because politicians have the hubris to think they know how other people should run their lives. People get into politics because they want power and control. There's no altruistic motive. This is why all governments trend towards totalitarianism on a long enough timeline.

Last edited by JohnG@lt (2010-04-07 18:55:29)

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

Hayek always reminded me of Ayn Rand -- very idealistic.

Reality dictates a mixed approach.  This is why the most functional economies are mixed.

No, they are mixed because politicians have the hubris to think they know how other people should run their lives. People get into politics because they want power and control. There's no altruistic motive. This is why all governments trend towards totalitarianism on a long enough timeline.

I disagree.  There is certainly hubris involved, but motives vary by individual.  Ron Paul (despite how loony he can sometimes be) seems like an example of a guy who really does mean well.  Dennis Kucinich is another one like that.

As for governments trending towards totalitarianism...  I don't see that with Canada or Norway.

In the cases where republics trend towards it, it's usually at least partially the fault of the private sector via crony capitalism -- which often involves deregulation of key areas.

Norway? Norway is entirely totalitarian. It's just a polite totalitarianism. They may not have laws on the books governing individual behavior but they have a small population and all small populations police themselves. Try being 'different' in any small town. Couple this with the fact that the vast majority of the people are employed by the state, the resources are controlled by the state, taxes are ridiculously high etc. There's no real freedom there.

Canada is certainly trending towards totalitarianism. Sure, it may have a largely free economy but things like gun control are taking center stage. Government will be used more and more over time by one group of people asserting it's will and dominance over others just like American politics have devolved to.

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Canada is certainly trending towards totalitarianism. Sure, it may have a largely free economy but things like gun control are taking center stage. Government will be used more and more over time by one group of people asserting it's will and dominance over others just like American politics have devolved to.

I think they'll relent on gun control because they don't have much of a choice otherwise.  It's a pretty small problem compared to our worries though.  They also budget far better than we do.

As offtopic as it is, gun control will never go away here.

Kmarion wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Winston_Churchill wrote:

As far as I know it doesnt even exist commercially in Canada.  And the business ones are usually pretty shit.  I'm on a business fibre line right now and I max out at around 600-700kB/s

lol, thats really not fast if you're actually on fibre

I'm on the lowest tiered plan. There is a high speed option but I have no need.

The 20 plan I presume. I'm on the 50.. they are testing 100 down here now. Tampa and Dallas are testbeds for Verizon.

I have 25down/25up from fios.
My friend who works for Verizon says they have tested 1gb down and 1 gb up lol.
Wonder how much that will cost?

JohnG@lt wrote:

Catbox wrote:

Kmarion wrote:

The 20 plan I presume. I'm on the 50.. they are testing 100 down here now. Tampa and Dallas are testbeds for Verizon.

I have 25down/25up from fios.
My friend who works for Verizon says they have tested 1gb down and 1 gb up lol.
Wonder how much that will cost?

And that's pretty much my entire point. They're testing and will implement faster speeds that no government in the world will ever have the money or will to compete with. South Korea may be ahead of us now but we'll see in 20 years when their infrastructure has fallen way behind us.

Not likely to happen...   Admittedly, this side of the issue probably has less to do with central planning and more to do with population density.

mikkel wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

mikkel wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Let's face it, a guy keeping his file sharing programs running at max bandwidth 24/7 is putting a burden on the rest of us that we shouldn't have to suffer for.

Why is that? Turn it around and ask yourself why a person buying precisely the same product as you do should suffer punishment simply because you choose to use the product less than he does. There is nothing outrageous about flat-fee services, and they affect you in the use of many more services than just Internet service.


That would never happen. You'd be paying well in excess of $500 a month for your average cable service if your service provider's network had to be dimensioned to accommodate full concurrency.

Then by your own logic, maxing out your bandwidth day and night should bring repercussions since the system can't handle it. They should be forced to pay the $500 a month if they're doing it.

Why are you ascribing that logic to me? The logic was yours, applied in the opposite situation. What makes you think the 'system' can't handle people using their connections? Why do you feel that people should be 'forced' to pay more for using their product within the same parameters defined in the contract between them and their service provider as the ones defined in the contract between you and your service provider?

You're using my example of the cost of concurrency to argue that people who use their connections more than others should carry the cost. The cost of concurrency is established by the sum total throughput sold by the service provider. It has nothing to do with usage. For the argument to be sound, you should be arguing for ISPs selling less throughput.

Charging by the bit would be more realistic.

Winston_Churchill wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

mikkel wrote:

Why are you ascribing that logic to me? The logic was yours, applied in the opposite situation. What makes you think the 'system' can't handle people using their connections? Why do you feel that people should be 'forced' to pay more for using their product within the same parameters defined in the contract between them and their service provider as the ones defined in the contract between you and your service provider?

You're using my example of the cost of concurrency to argue that people who use their connections more than others should carry the cost. The cost of concurrency is established by the sum total throughput sold by the service provider. It has nothing to do with usage. For the argument to be sound, you should be arguing for ISPs selling less throughput.

Charging by the bit would be more realistic.

Kind of like cell phones charge by the second?

You're arguing semantics. Bit, Byte, Mb, MB, GB, whatever. AOL used to charge by the minute. Cell phone companies do the same after you exceed your alotted monthly minutes.

mikkel wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

mikkel wrote:

Why are you ascribing that logic to me? The logic was yours, applied in the opposite situation. What makes you think the 'system' can't handle people using their connections? Why do you feel that people should be 'forced' to pay more for using their product within the same parameters defined in the contract between them and their service provider as the ones defined in the contract between you and your service provider?

You're using my example of the cost of concurrency to argue that people who use their connections more than others should carry the cost. The cost of concurrency is established by the sum total throughput sold by the service provider. It has nothing to do with usage. For the argument to be sound, you should be arguing for ISPs selling less throughput.

Charging by the bit would be more realistic.

Service providers are businesses, and their customers don't want to be charged by the bit. Realistic is selling your customers the products they want, and that's what service providers are doing.

But you seem to have no problem with people maxing out their bandwidth allocation, yet you admit that if everyone did it the system would collapse. Can't have your cake and eat it too.

JohnG@lt wrote:

mikkel wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Charging by the bit would be more realistic.

Service providers are businesses, and their customers don't want to be charged by the bit. Realistic is selling your customers the products they want, and that's what service providers are doing.

But you seem to have no problem with people maxing out their bandwidth allocation, yet you admit that if everyone did it the system would collapse. Can't have your cake and eat it too.

What are you talking about? I don't 'admit' that no commercial end-user service provider has the capacity to serve every customer at full throughput. It's a fact of the way that service providers do business, and they've been doing business in this manner for about a decade now without collapsing. Yes, they're having their cake and eating it too.

Do you think that your local gym could afford to do monthly flat-rate memberships if every member spent every minute of every day mastering stairs? Do you think that the cellular infrastructure could manage unlimited texting if everyone with a plan that allowed it started sending text messages as fast as the towers could receive them?

These products are being sold and are turning profits. It's like arguing that there should be a separate lane for every car on the road.

South Korea is simple supply and demand and pop density... FFS they have star craft TV lol.