FCC's Democrats: Apply Neutrality Rules to Wireless → Well Good

As a consumer, I see no difference connecting to the internet via a wireless carrier or my home cable modem. Both arrive at the same destination.

Whoever created the dividing line between the two are only after revenue.

They created a dividing line because of how different the technologies are. That is not to say net neutrality shouldn't apply to wireless. But the two are very different even if consumers don't see it.

They are significantly different but how should those differences affect neutrality, if at all?

It doesn't matter if net neutrality applies to wireless or not. Caps and costs will keep wireless from operating like landlines anyway. If people think net neutrality will make unlimited streaming of Netflix, Apple, or Amazon videos possible on cell networks, they are sadly deluded.

Traditionally, CAPS and metered service have not been part of net neutrality.

In a 30 day month there are 2,5992,000 seconds.

@ 300 bits/second (ie. acoustic coupler modem) = 777,600,000 bits/month transfer (omitting overhead), or 97,200,000 8-bit bytes, or 97.2 MB/month over copper wires.

Over the same copper wires today I can transfer
@ 50Mbps VDSL modem = 1.296 x 10^14 bits/month, or
1.62 x 10^13 8-bit bytes, or
16,200,000 MB/month or 16.2 TB

So what changed? Mostly the hardware,/software but not the medium (copper wires) so much.

With cellular data, we started off in the stone ages with low data rates too. Now with better software & hardware, we can pretty much match copper data rates on cellular. What hasn't changed is the medium (spectrum). I think that we can expect continued improvements in wireless infrastructure in the years ahead such that wireless could become the network of choice for most people.

We've already reach a point of inflection where the incumbents see their own wired networks (DSL) as a drag on their earnings vs. wireless, hence the push to begin moving customers off ADSL
onto fiber and (preferably) wireless - where the margins are higher.

Yes, technology has improved and the throughput has increased over the years. However, both wireless and copper have what are effectively speed limits. Look up Shannon-Hartley theorem sometime, basically it describes the maximum attainable throughput of a given medium (wireless/copper/fiber/two cans and a string/etc) in the presence of noise. Wireless has some room to grow, but they are already reaching the physical limits of copper. (Copper maxes out at about 10 gbps because of practical limits to frequency, attenuation, noise, and power levels.) So that DSL is unlikely to get much faster, but the wireless can probably do a fair amount better yet. (Fiber is absurdly good by comparison to either wireless or copper.)

I disagree. A given chunk of spectrum might have theoretical limits but theoretical concurrent reuse of the same spectrum provides limitless possibilities. My hope is advances in beam forming technology will enable greater spectrum reuse within the same cell and continue to increase throughput.