Net neutrality takes effect Friday; ISPs scramble to avoid complaints

The Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules take effect Friday this week, and they've already had a noticeable impact on the behavior of Internet service providers.

Source

The new rules were passed on February 26, but weren't added to the Federal Register until April 13. There is a 60 day waiting period after published until the law goes into effect.

ISPs are freaking out about the new laws going into effect this Friday. They are reaching out to other providers and striking deals to share bandwith by redirecting their customers through multiple interconnection points. Customers that would normally experience slowdowns will be redirected through partnered networks. Some are still hashing it out.

The FCC's blocking and throttling bans don't cover interconnection problems, in which traffic gets slowed down because there isn't enough capacity to transfer it all from one network to another. ISPs have been demanding payments from companies like Cogent in exchange for upgrading the network links, and the FCC didn't ban those payments. But the commission said it would let companies file complaints against ISPs to determine whether they are making unreasonable demands and harming consumers by not upgrading infrastructure.

Whats happening is businesses used to be able to pay for higher bandwidth and after Friday, could suffer inter-connectivity issues and slowdowns. Not exactly good for any business who provides services over the internet or requires it to run.

Transit providers are required to submit a complaint with the FCC in order to have their ISP investigated for intentional wrongdoing or neglecting to upgrade their infrastructure.

Any disputes between providers after this Friday will fall into the FCC’s lap, who are now a key player is settling arguments by deciding how internet providers will distribute their services.

Hold on to your gateways, this could get ugly. I doubt the average Joe will suffer much, but depending on how Joe uses that internet and for what, he may suffer slightly. If your company relies on speed and stability, good luck. Paying for faster service is over, but you can at least know your internet speed will be as slow as your neighbors. We’ll just have to wait and see.

a reply to: eisegesis

Whats happening is businesses used to be able to pay for higher bandwidth and after Friday

Actually, no.

What was happening was businesses were strong armed into paying B$ fees and purposely slowed down by the ISP until the business owner payed up. Its not like the ISP were adding new lines, all they did once the customer payed up they purposely stop slowing them down.

That is no longer going to happen. The internet will be like it was in the beginning , ISP won't be picking the winners and the losers on the free market that is known as the internet. Small business owners will have the same voice as the Oligopoly corporations online.

Without net neutrality Your ISP can determine who you do business with and when.

I pay about $103.00 for 80 Gbit per month download
on xplornet satellite disk in Ont. Canada

a reply to: interupt42

What was happening was businesses were strong armed into paying B$ fees and purposely slowed down by the ISP until the business owner payed up.

All businesses? Or just the ones who couldn't afford the bandwidth? I can understand why certain companies are mad, they had their ISP in their own back pocket. Whatever money the ISP was receiving from the business in exchange for prioritizing their traffic is no longer acceptable.

The FCC order's most specific guidelines prevent Internet service providers from blocking or throttling traffic or prioritizing content in exchange for payment.

a reply to: eisegesis

but you can at least know your internet speed will be as slow as your neighbors. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Chuckle…

No fast lane, no express lane, no faster than light?

I think all net neutral means is everyone gets equally spied on… now.

a reply to: interupt42

Without net neutrality Your ISP can determine who you do business with and when.

It's still the same, except now the FCC does it. Some business are only looking for the highest speed possible and many ISPs will loss business if their infrastructure cannot cater to them and us equally.

If any business accounts for a significant amount of ports then they would have to increase and maintain their bandwidth while not letting the little guys or smaller businesses suffer. If you control the bandwidth, at many times, your control the flow of money. It will be interesting to see how companies react.

I have a question. Wall street uses computers that buy and sell in ten thousandths of a second. How fast a net is that? Are there two different internets? Just like the wealthy travel over head in Lear jets and helos while the rest of us slug it out in ground traffic.

originally posted by: intrptr
I have a question. Wall street uses computers that buy and sell in ten thousandths of a second. How fast a net is that? Are there two different internets? Just like the wealthy travel over head in Lear jets and helos while the rest of us slug it out in ground traffic.

You're smart, you tell me.

Why Is Wall Street So Excited By Tough New Net Neutrality Regulations on Cable Companies?

It comes via Brian Fung, and it shows the reaction of the stock market to yesterday's news that FCC chair Tom Wheeler plans to impose strict net neutrality rules on broadband internet suppliers. This mostly applies to cable companies, and the prospect of strong regulation should have sent their stocks downward. Instead, they spiked upward.

I would try to figure it out, but my eyelids are getting heavy. They originally came off as dumb and unaware of it's true implications, but we all know that they know something that we don't. Neutrality this or that, the money is only being shifted around.

a reply to: eisegesis

…the prospect of strong regulation should have sent their stocks downward. Instead, they spiked upward.

If I had to guess (because I'm not that smart), its probably because they discovered they don't have to give up their lear jets and helos, their net remains un regulated.

Spiking a flurry of good cheer as they prepare to carry out more inside trading.

fwiw,
here in new england, businesses pay somewhere in the $200-$250 a month range for a 20x2 connection (with static ip) from time warner.

those of us buying residential internet, however, can have a 50x5 connection for as low as $60 a month, and as high as $95 a month- depending on how willing you are to call them a few times a year and bitch when they up the bill.

I just quit a good paying job from a competing ISP- these companies are all crooks. the people in charge want money- they don't care what the business does, how it profits, or what laws it breaks- as long as they don't get charged.

Tear it down.

a reply to: eisegesis

It's still the same, except now the FCC does it. Some business are only looking for the highest speed possible and many ISPs will loss business if their infrastructure cannot cater to them and us equally.

The FCC will not be able to throttle your speed and they won't be able to block legal content. Of course that brings the debate as to what is legal content?

However, note that the FCC overseeing the internet is not an ideal fix but it was the lesser suck @ss optioin of the two options we had.

Option 1 ISP control the internet:

Had this would have happened the internet would have been destroyed overnight. The ISP could decide who and what you got to access and who you did business with. Also the industry that gets the most hated customer ratings year after year would have been in control of the internet.

As a matter of fact what the most hated industry was asking to do was to double charge for the same service and not provide what the customer was paying for.

For example: I pay 80 dollars for 50 MB download speeds , what the ISP was proposing was that if netflix didn't pay extra money they would purposely going to slow down my speed to netflix to only .5 - 1mb speeds, despite me paying for 50 MB downloads speed.


Also the ISP who are also content providers would also have the right to slow down competing services and demand extra money from online businesses who aren't even on their network let alone in the US,

Taking net neutrality away was only a move for the ISP to maintain control and force everyone to give them a piece of the action by being the middle man.


Option 2 FCC control the internet: Not an ideal option but it bought us some time before the internet would be completely destroyed. No body is claiming the FCC taking oversight as a Victory or the ideal situation but it was the lesser of the two evils for the time being. Maybe enough time for Kim Dotcom to get his mesh type network of the ground.

a reply to: eisegesis

Whatever money the ISP was receiving from the business in exchange for prioritizing their traffic is no longer acceptable.

That is not accurate.

The method on how the ISP and Content providers negotiate large demand loads and fast content hasn't changed.

Content providers negotiate with ISP to host their content in the iSP data centers, therefore allowing for faster direct traffic to the clients. This hasn't changed and they still negotiate with each other on the cost.

What changed was: The ISP are forced to provide the service speeds that the clients are paying for regardless what site they go to. In other words if you pay for 50MB downloads speeds you should get 50 MB downloads speeds if you go to comcast.com or googlefiber.com


What the ISP was trying to do was add another method of revenue by forcing the clients and the content providers to pay twice for the same service.

Whatever else may be true about net neutrality, as soon as the government got involved the amount of chaos was doomed to increase.

a reply to: interupt42

Exactly. It's not that we LIKE having the FCC monitor the internet, the ISP's just proved that they can't be trusted with that responsibility. So we have to think up a new solution. It's unfortunate, but like you said, it's the lesser of two evils.

originally posted by: DrogoTheNorman
Whatever else may be true about net neutrality, as soon as the government got involved the amount of chaos was doomed to increase.

I'd just like to comment on this... Exactly where do you thing the internet was created in the first place? And chaos is pretty much what we have on the net at the present. Do you think it is better for ISP be allowed to throttle bandwidth to certain businesses and customer for extortion? As the internet mature, the gov contracted out the majority of work to private companies who leveraged that position for profits. Now that has become a reality, *someone* has to step in and fix the problem of oversight of this bogus practice because the ISP are not going to fix themselves. My opinion is your perspective on this is backward. As someone else posted, this is the lessor of 2 evils and while the solution isn't perfect it's more fair than allowing corporate ISPs strong arm tactics. The only real problem I see it when it comes to international connections... I think it is offensive for a state government to *control* content as they do now. They should be required to allow all content, or be disconnected completely. Unfortunately the US gov (FCC) can't do much to influence ISP behavior internationally and there is a void of oversight internationally.