[opendtv] Re: ISPs denied entry into apartment buildings could get help from FCC
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2017 00:26:43 +0000
John Shutt wrote:
You lost me there, Bert. For home use, Internet use depended 100%
on guaranteed-neutral, Title II telephone lines TO DIAL INTO AN
INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER'S MODEM POOL.
True enough. The critical point here being, though, that with that guaranteed
neutral dialup link, every single household had access to any number of
competing ISPs.
Now, let's imagine a different universe. Let's imagine that your telco, the
service which provided your landline, was not held to any neutrality mandate.
Under such circumstances, it would not be required to offer any sort of
unwalled Internet service from any outside provider. In fact, back in the 1980s
and early 1990s, the general public did not even expect unwalled Internet
service, in spite of what Craig thinks.
So, nothing would have precluded your telco to adopt its own AOL model, offer
its own version of a partially walled off, proprietary "internet-like" service,
and many consumers would have been just fine with that. They knew no better.
Craig thinks that this neutral Internet, which we have come to demand, was
somehow ordained. Nothing could be further from the truth.
How the Internet service provider handled the data once you hit their
network was not regulated by Title II. As I recall, in the dial-up days
some larger internet content providers paid for dedicated T1tie lines
to the larger ISPs, resulting in those ISPs boasting a faster internet
experience than their competitors, even at the same 56K dial-up rate.
Their core networks were indeed their own. The KEY POINT was that every Tom,
Dick, and Harry could switch ISPs at the drop of a hat. No appointments, no
long delays, nothing like that. It was just as easy as it is now to use a new
web site. ONLY because the dialup line you used had been mandated to be
neutral, from back ca. 1906. So, companies like AOL, which tried to use more of
a cable TV like closed in model, even used their own browser for some time, had
to compete openly with companies that created no such restrictions. Guess who
won?
Bert
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