How will net-neutrality affect WoW and subscription fees?

[Nathanyel]

I assume you know the difference between Transit Networks and IXP's? Most of the data today is already shuffled through peering. The Internet hasn't been a You-->backbone-->service model for a decade. I don't really see that changing very much due to this. My EU ISP will still peer directly with Netflix IXP - and the traffic never gets shuffled by the transit backbone.

My point was about overall operating costs for US-based companies (as well as any other company) being taxed for delivering content to US customers, and that indirectly affecting customers globally, not US-based companies delivering data to customers outside the US though.

[Deleted]

My point was about overall operating costs for US-based companies (as well as any other company) being taxed for delivering content to US customers, and that indirectly affecting customers globally, not US-based companies delivering data to customers outside the US though.

Yeah, sure - but that's the situation we have now and have had for ages. NN didn't really change that and I very much doubt it's going to change in the future.
For us who live outside US, life goes on pretty much as it has always done. Yes, maybe someone will raise their overall pricing globally because of some charges in US. But I don't really see that being much diferent from adjusting for inflation and currency conversion defecits, the price of oil - or changes in interntational transit network pricing. I don't believe we'll see huge charges or changes in service pricing. I very much doubt there's going to be a global meltdown/panic over this. Service prices get adjusted every now and then for various reasons. It's not a big deal.

But for you Americans living inside the wall (soon(tm)) it is, because not only are you going to get the same pricing adjustments from your service provider, but your last-mile-broadband monopoly is now going to screw you hard and as many times as they can. Your worst case scenario is double-charging ISP's running amok making you pay for the same thing in your "Gaming Broadband Package" and then getting hit by service charges from things you consume - and the kicker is - you don't have any alternatives to switch to, because it's effectively a monopoly. There's no competition, so charges keep creeping up while innovation and quality are stifled. None of this would be an issue if you had a market that could compete. But you don't.

If I was in US - *that's* the thing I'd be really angry about - not whether Blizzard is going to raise the price of the sub couple cents or not.

[Altariaz]

So much to think about with this FCC. I am happy for once that I don't live in the states.

What people don't get about net neutrality is that there is a massive difference between the abstract principle and how the legislation actually works: It works in favour of maintaining monopolies and against consumer interests. Damn good job the Federal Communications Commission voted as it did.

[rda]

That poster is completely full of shit. Peering itself is such a low cost that it's essentially free, that's why it's always been done without charging. ...

You are wrong here. That poster is actually saying how it is.

Peering is only free if it is symmetric. The moment it becomes asymmetric, it stops being free.

Here is an illustration of an example issue (scroll down to The Netflix, Comcast and Level 3 Story):

http://drpeering.net/core/ch10.2-The...Ecosystem.html

I agree with many of the other things you say, but on this particular thing you are wrong.

[Deleted]

What people don't get about net neutrality is that there is a massive difference between the abstract principle and how the legislation actually works: It works in favour of maintaining monopolies and against consumer interests. Damn good job the Federal Communications Commission voted as it did.

True, but correct me if i'm wrong. The US goverment does not own any infrastructure when it comes to internet. The cables are owned by companies that provide a service. Which means that its near to impossible to acutally compete with the big companies cause you got no way in to the market.
So what FCC is creating is not only a monopoly but an unregulated monopoly which serves no one else than the companies that owns the cables.


As i said, i honestly dont know if what i said is true. Since i dont know how the infrastructure looks like in the US. But this is what ive heard from people.

[rda]

True, but correct me if i'm wrong. The US goverment does not own any infrastructure when it comes to internet. The cables are owned by companies that provide a service. Which means that its near to impossible to acutally compete with the big companies cause you got no way in to the market.
So what FCC is creating is not only a monopoly but an unregulated monopoly which serves no one else than the companies that owns the cables.

The cables are owned by the companies. You can compete with these companies, but yes, this is hard. If we remove the obvious notion that getting from zero to as big as, say, Verizon is, is hard in and of itself and turn to discussing what is the biggest obstacle *on the way* to it, that's government regulations. Don't get me wrong, sure, the existing big sharks will also work against you, but their biggest weapon is, again, government regulations. There is a case to be made to keep net neutrality *as a means to protect the end user while the other government regulations are being lifted / other things happen and there appears good competition*. But only for that, because in the end, net neutrality is one more thing that makes it harder for competition to appear.

[Deleted]

The cables are owned by the companies. You can compete with these companies, but yes, this is hard. If we remove the obvious notion that getting from zero to as big as, say, Verizon is, is hard in and of itself and turn to discussing what is the biggest obstacle *on the way* to it, that's government regulations. Don't get me wrong, sure, the existing big sharks will also work against you, but their biggest weapon is, again, government regulations. There is a case to be made to keep net neutrality *as a means to protect the end user while the other government regulations are being lifted / other things happen and there appears good competition*. But only for that, because in the end, net neutrality is one more thing that makes it harder for competition to appear.

Fair enough, i hope i'm wrong. I am from Sweden so capitalism ala US isnt really to my taste. I wouldnt trust companies to ever think of someone else but themselves.
Its bad enough having to trust the government to do whats best for the people.

NN ofc has its flaws, its not perfect. But removing it will increase the power of the companies, which will lead to a less diverse internet. Companies will have to pay the ISP for a good service which will lead to companies being forced to charge more for the content.

So the question is, where should the power lie. With the companies or with the government?

[Twdft]

because in the end, net neutrality is one more thing that makes it harder for competition to appear.

I guess I have not enough brain cells to understand that. How is the principle to transport my start-ups data the same as everyone elses data making it harder for me?

[rda]

Fair enough, i hope i'm wrong. I am from Sweden so capitalism ala US isnt really to my taste. I wouldnt trust companies to ever think of someone else but themselves.
Its bad enough having to trust the government to do whats best for the people.

NN ofc has its flaws, its not perfect. But removing it will increase the power of the companies, which will lead to a less diverse internet. Companies will have to pay the ISP for a good service which will lead to companies being forced to charge more for the content.

So the question is, where should the power lie. With the companies or with the government?

In this question, unequivocally with the companies. Give power to the government and everything will simply stagnate and rot. It is the companies that are the drivers of the progress. Yes, there are obviously cases of companies abusing power, but please note that in most cases this tracks right back to this or that government regulation that a particular company uses to bash the competitors with. Anti-monopoly and similar laws are more or less the only exception (and yes, they are great).

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I guess I have not enough brain cells to understand that. How is the principle to transport my start-ups data the same as everyone elses data making it harder for me?

This question gets asked so often, someone should make a FAQ.

Net neutrality tells the carriers: compete on A, B, C (eg, fiber quantity, peering agreements), but not on D, E, F (eg, providing faster access to resource X, or providing faster access to X if you agree to slower access to Y). It limits the range of things that the carriers can compete on, this reduces competition opportunities (significantly).

[Deleted]

In this question, unequivocally with the companies. Give power to the government and everything will simply stagnate and rot. It is the companies that are the drivers of the progress. Yes, there are obviously cases of companies abusing power, but please note that in most cases this tracks right back to this or that government regulation that a particular company uses to bash the competitors with. Anti-monopoly and similar laws are more or less the only exception (and yes, they are great).

Well that is true. But some powers need to lie with the government. Cause they arnt obligated to make a profit. Things like education, Healthcare, elderlycare. And with how important internet is to the society today, having the power lie with the companies who only want to make themselves more money is not a good thing.
So i hope im wrong, and you americans dont get buttfuc*ed by your ISPs.

[Spiral Mage]

Wait, wait. Did you suggest the entertainment package will ONLY be $14.99 a month?
Boy are you in for a surprise! It's gonna be alot more expensive than that.
And very limiting, so they can charge for every little thing you're into, per thing, not in packages that actually help you.

But no, if you think that's the worst of it .. you dunno what you're potentially in for.
I don't even want to post what my friend suggested, what he suggested is far worse.
And I'm glad that it's so devious that it should take them awhile to catch onto it, if they do at all.

Let's just say he's spent this entire life since he was a kid online.
So he said, "You think that's the worst they can do? Oh no, there's far, far worse man."

But like he said, I don't even want to bring it up.
If no one has thought of it yet, that's for the best.

Just suffice to say, bundles/packages will be stacked against you.
Will be priced much higher than you think.
And if they really, really think about it hard .. there's still worse they can do to us.

And all of this will be done by companies like Verizon, through people like Ajit Pai.
Without a single flying fuck given to what we want.
Because this country isn't by the people, for the people anymore.
It's screw us all in the name of making a quick buck and playing the short game.

One news reporter pointed out that scifi fiction authors do a good job of predicting the future.
And so many of them favor a bleak, dystopian future where our lives are owned by big business, and there is no real government or peoples' rights anymore.

We're headed there now. I don't know if we can wait until 2020.

[Twdft]

This question gets asked so often, someone should make a FAQ.

Net neutrality tells the carriers: compete on A, B, C (eg, fiber quantity, peering agreements), but not on D, E, F (eg, providing faster access to resource X, or providing faster access to X if you agree to slower access to Y). It limits the range of things that the carriers can compete on, this reduces competition opportunities (significantly).

I am a start-up trying to compete with Netflix. As you say yourself NN tells carriers not to provide Netflix faster access to customers than me. How is that a bad thing for my start-up?

[rda]

I am a start-up trying to compete with Netflix. As you say yourself NN tells carriers not to provide Netflix faster access to customers than me. How is that a bad thing for my start-up?

For example, if you are a startup affiliated with Netflix or another valuable resource, you cannot provide speeds faster to that resource of yours than to all others.

There are many other examples, including huge ones associated with future tech. Ie, imagine a service which relies on super-fast access speeds to a particular resource - think high-speed trading, but consumer-oriented. We can easily have something like that in the future, but net neutrality simply prevents it from appearing / developing.

[Twdft]

For example, if you are a startup affiliated with Netflix or another valuable resource, you cannot provide speeds faster to that resource of yours than to all others.

There are many other examples, including huge ones associated with future tech. Ie, imagine a service which relies on super-fast access speeds to a particular resource - think high-speed trading, but consumer-oriented. We can easily have something like that in the future, but net neutrality simply prevents it from appearing / developing.

Your definition of not hindering innovation seems to be getting faster access than others. Just imagine two start-ups wanting to provide a similar service. NN means both get the same opportunity.

[HuxNeva]

Yes, and some of us can select other ISPs if the current one would behave strangely.

Unfortunately this anti-NN atmosphere has poisoned the discussion. ISP could use the lack of net neutrality to provide benefits for consumers: low latency when playing WoW and on vent/ts/discord and throttling advanced patch-downloads during nights; but I doubt that they will do that.

I found the post https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...8#post48363078 quite informative.

This is a very onesided view, handily leaving out all the cases where 'last mile' ISP's went to great lengths of degrading and outright blocking 'over-the-top' service providers in tings like Voice and VoD services because they saw them as competition for their own telephony and TV/Video packages.

[rda]

Your definition of not hindering innovation seems to be getting faster access than others. Just imagine two start-ups wanting to provide a similar service. NN means both get the same opportunity.

It's not my definition of hindering innovation, it's how net neutrality hinders innovation, and yes, this is a big factor. In your example, net neutrality forces two start-ups to compete on some factors but not on others. If the start-ups could compete on more factors, they would have been competing more fiercely and there would be more start-ups wanting to compete.

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This is a very onesided view, handily leaving out all the cases where 'last mile' ISP's went to great lengths of degrading and outright blocking 'over-the-top' service providers in tings like Voice and VoD services because they saw them as competition for their own telephony and TV/Video packages.

The problem is not there. (Or, rather, I meant it is not with the small local carriers.)

[Aggrophobic]

Nothing will happen to WoW, this will have an effect on ISPs ("Take us for unlimited speed on whatever you do") and smaller companies. "Can you please not throttle our service?", give us this and that and we have a deal. Basically fucking over any startups etc. But for the big companies like Blizzard, not much will change.

If ISPs force Blizzard to pay for the added speed then it will affect players.
Blizzard is not taking the hit for this when they can just blame it on the IPS and politicians.

[HuxNeva]

I am a start-up trying to compete with Netflix. As you say yourself NN tells carriers not to provide Netflix faster access to customers than me. How is that a bad thing for my start-up?

Your startup will be fucked, as the 'new Internet', which Netflix with their near monopoly on VoD will love by the way, will make getting into the VoD business a billion dollar investment involving extreme lawyering or regulatory deal support, edge cache infrastructure leases etc. etc. long before you have your first customer as opposed to getting a single server at OVH or AWS and serving up some original content.

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The problem is not there. (Or, rather, I meant it is not with the small local carriers.)

Oh realy? Try speaking to some veterans at companies like Skype etc, and have them tell you about the 'good old days'.

[rda]

Oh realy? Try speaking to some veterans at companies like Skype etc, and have them tell you about the 'good old days'.

No, I agree that there was (and still is) all kinds of silliness. I just thought you were talking about small local guys.

[HuxNeva]

No, I agree that there was (and still is) all kinds of silliness. I just thought you were talking about small local guys.

Define 'small'. A duopoly serving around 2 million homes, is that small? for the customer, if there are no alternatives, the size of the ISP doesn't matter.