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Comment by 0xdeadbeefbabe | Hacker News Reader

The worst part is involving the FCC at all.

They are the federal communications commission. Isn't this, err, right up their alley?

Sure, but their name does not give them the ability to do a good job, an unpopular position given that they seem to be saving us from pay to play Internet fast lanes etc.

I'll have to agree to this.

Electricity is electricity, water is water, natural gas is natural gas.

But Internet traffic isn't a homogenous substance.

Bytes are bytes.

It delivers more than just bytes. It's communication in different forms for different purposes. On the other hand, when water is delivered it's the same water here or there.

Telecoms are also classified as utilities.

And what form does that communication take?

Bytes.

As for the water, once delivered it is used for drinking, for washing, for cooling, for watering...but it travels, unmolested, as water being commonly carried.

The electricity certainly gets used for lots of different things.

UDP and TCP is what I want my ISPs concerned with, not what I'm doing with those packets.

no even that's too high - your ISP shouldn't be dealing with UDP or TCP (or anything else) - they should route IP packets and be done with it

Heh well, may help with QoS, but I guess that we've seen what a slippery slope that can be.

"different forms for different purposes" -- no it's not, it's all bytes. The ISP should not care or know what the purpose of those bytes are. The same way the electric company doesn't care what I plug into my outlets.

Not disagreeing with the basic idea, but there's also latency and peak throughput.

The utility that Internet providers are providing is information.

You're calling it a utility.

I guess you're just going to define it a utility, ham sandwhich is also a utility.

I'm not sure if English isn't your first language, but many words have several meanings. For example "providing utility" means "to provide something of use" per this[1] definition:

  Utility, or usefulness, is the (perceived) ability
  of something to satisfy needs or wants.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility

Well they regulate radio. [Edit] Just check out the innovations in radio?

Well they regulate radio.

I agree, they regulate a bunch of stuff. I suppose that's a carte blanche to regulate anything it sees itself fit to regulate?

You're being obtuse on purpose. The name of the organization is Federal Communications Commission. They have the authority to regulate all interstate communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable. The Internet absolutely falls within their jurisdiction.

Utilities are the state of being useful, profitable, or beneficial. Utilities in the US are typically public, so the internet is a public useful, profitable and beneficial utility.

A utility is a platform that is standard/common so that more useful platforms can be built on top of it. Utilities become part of the stack of economic production. A utility could be seen as an economic standard.

If wireless and radio are utilities then so is broadband and wired.

They aren't typically public. They are typically private companies that are regulated by a utilities commission at the state level.

Typically, but not always.

There are certainly detailed technical regulations about what type of electricity and water your utility must provide.

Indeed, the very fact that someone can say "water is water", shows just how successful regulation has been in that market.

Apply the same logic to any communication network, say telephones.

Isn't the goal to make it homogeneous?

I think I'd like it fine if my ISP treated my internet traffic as if it were.

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