Senators, ISPs, and Network Neutrality 174
Polarism submitted a good article about
net neutrality that is currently running on Ars. It's a good explanation of where the pieces of the problem are, the government issues, the industry issues, etc. Worth a read.
Why the red herring? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:4, Funny)
How dare you sir! The telecoms are trustworthy, honorable companies. They would never intentionally release distorted information to increase their profits. Anyone back me up on this?
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:5, Funny)
Our president probably would.
Re:Move on to MoveOn (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does every tech article, without fail, have more political jibes in it than tech comments? I just started reading the comments under this story, and this is only the first one I saw. I'm sure it won't be the last.
Unfortunately, the Internet has become a political battleground now, and the whole Net Neutrality issue has polarized opinions among techies and non-techies alike. Most people with a technical bent see Net Neutrality as necessary, to keep everyone on an even footing. The non-technical can't understand the fuss, because they lack the knowledge of how the technical side of the Internet works and how it's paid for. Let's face, how many people look closely at their phone bill and wonder just what it all means? All they know is, the phone keeps working if I pay the bill.
Now, you won't find a more opinionated person than your average Slashdot user. We squabble over Linux vs. Microsoft, Oracle vs. MySQL, Google vs. Yahoo!, etc. Even those fights are now becoming more political, because they involve legal challenges, laws, foreign governments, and the like. I think it's safe to say that now that the political wind is blowing so strong through IT, Slashdotters wound be hard pressed to saty out of the fight. So don't expect the political diatribes to die down in the foreseeable future. It's the price we're paying for our new technological culture.
Re:Move on to MoveOn (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't understand. You opened an article about the fundamental rules of the Internet being rewritten by a bunch of technically illiterate politicians, and you're surprised to find people are discussing politics?
WTF do you expect people to be talking about?
I share your nostalgia for the days when politics wasn't a major topic here. Now please wake the fuck up.
Re:Move on to MoveOn (Score:2)
I know I didn't express the root cause of my annoyance very well, but the ugly tone of most of the responses to my comment show the point pretty well. No one speaks against the groupthink because they get
Re:Move on to MoveOn (Score:2)
It depends on what the criticism is about. People who think issues involving the current administration (or indeed, the overall political direction of congress + corporations) have multiple nuanced sides all equally deserving of credibility just might be in the wrong crowd here on slashdot. This isn't Huffington's site, but it's more Huffington than Limbaugh no doubt.
Because Nobody's THINKING about the technology (Score:2)
Because almost nobody's bothering to *think* about the technology - MoveOn has a political agenda and no technical clue, and the telco guys have a knee-jerk reaction about always arguing regulation and money when anybody challenges them, rather than explaining the technical points they're making to politicians and reporters who don't have a clue about technology, and Dave Isenberg, who should know better, is
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:4, Insightful)
Customer: "I'm getting an 'invalid username or password' error, is your service down?"
Agent (after checking logs): "No, you're typing the wrong username."
Other thrilling examples include "So, is my modem my hard drive or is it my screen?", "What's an X?", "What is a phone?", and "What is a keyboard?" (This last one was from someone who spoke fluent English and said she only used the internet for Yahoo mail, and after 5 solid minutes of explanation using phrases like "The thing your hands touch when you type an e-mail" she still couldn't grasp the concept).
Why is this relevant to net neutrality? People have no idea what the internet IS, let alone how it works. You can't expect understanding of a "complex" issue like network neutrality from someone who thinks he must be connected to the internet because his computer is on.
Senators are not necessarily more technically inclined than anybody else. Believe me, honest misunderstanding, or just lack of understanding, can account for FAR more than you think.
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:2)
No, but they have a staff, and they pay impartial experts to explain things to them, where necessary.
There has been plenty of instances of highly technical legislation going through congress before, and speeches were they discussed the issues in rational and accurate terms. You can't claim many of those same people went stupid all of a sudden.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Senate Experts (Score:2)
Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google
President and CEO, United States Telecom Association
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:2)
Damn. That's the funniest thing I've read in a while. I'd call you hopelessly naive about how the Congress works, but that would be an insult to hopelessly naive people everywhere. Trust me, no Congresscritter is going to pay for an expert opinion when a lobbyist will pay for it and give him/her/it a free dinner at The Palm or Galileo to boot. Never mind that that opinion will be about as impartial as a Red
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:2)
Yes only problem is they do go stupid all of a sudden, we've had senators pass stuff then later admit they had no clue what it is they passed or what it ment to anything. Also, All to often they admit to passing something without ever reading the proposal or having
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:2)
Actually, they don't. They give it to staff (the intern who is a friend of a friend) or to experts (which are better known as lobbists). I don't recall any impartiality in the process.
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:2)
Not you. The senators.
Quite seriously, let's imagine I'm charged with making a decision about
I would HIRE someone to tell me why it's good or why it's bad. Preferably someone who's neither from one end of the lobby chain, nor the other. Hell, I'd hire TWO guys. One from each side of the chain. Both should tell me why
My congressman's response... (Score:2)
> Believe me, honest misunderstanding, or just lack of understanding, can
>account for FAR more than you think.
When I called my Congressman's office and asked his position on Net Neutrality, the aid I spoke to told me this:
She said that basically the "Net Neutrality" thing was just a small portion of the legislation and had been "blown out of proportion". She also said that their position was that the legislation was
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:2, Insightful)
Like the best lies, it's an intentional distortion that takes advantage of an honest misunderstanding among nontechnical folks.
> While most people don't know the nuiances of negotiating a high-dollar agreement with a carrier, there are a great many people out there who pay $10-50/mo for simple web hosting.
There may be a few hundred thousand people who pay $10/50/month for
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:2)
While the optimist in me would love to beleive it's the latter, based on the people who are ant-net-neutrality, namely big telecomms and cable companies, it's impossible for me to accept that these people are simply ignorant of how it works. If they are then they certainly don't deserve the positions they hold within their companies.
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:2)
See http://savetheinternet.com/ [savetheinternet.com] -- the telecoms are spending millions on a [dis]information campaign, they keep whining about people not being charged when the peering agreements, hosting agreements and ISP bills charge all ends of the transaction. They cite "competition" when most people have two or fewer choices for broadband... Or the "our network" bit when we paid them over
Just business: slow Wikipedia, fast US-Porn.com (Score:2)
It is just about money. But I'm afraid that with this kind of discussion I can end up with 3 minutes long page loading from Wikipedia meanwhile my neighbor downloads ten high resolution porn clips...
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:2)
So if you're clever, please stand up!
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:5, Insightful)
But Comcast and Covad are paying for their upstream connections to AT&T. Do you think Comcast and Covad connect to the Internet for free? Everybody who connects pays their upstream provider. It's not like either Comcast or Covad are one of the big backbone providers.
On A Smaller Scale: (Score:3, Insightful)
On a smaller scale, what if I had a son who was old enough for me to charge him rent. Let's say part of his rent went towards using my DSL. So my ISP is carrying both my and my son's traffic. Should they charge me extra because both of us use their service? Of course not. The bandwidth is bought and paid for regardless of where the traffic is coming from and who is generating it.
The same applies to the whole of the Internet. Some companies want to double-charge for their bandwidth, and i
Re:On A Smaller Scale: (Score:2)
A tad off-topic, but I guarantee you that you signed a TOS that says you won't resell the bandwidth. Obviously that doesn't appl
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, everyone pays their upstream provider. I really think this is the telcos being greedy and wanting more money.
With the backbone providers, here is what must be taken into consideration: each provider allows the traffic of the other providers to freely pass through their network in exchange for free passage on the other providers network. If the large telcos want to start charging for that traffic, they will raise costs for everyone using the internet.
If one provider starts charging for peer traff
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:2)
Duh (Score:3, Funny)
It "ends" with IXPs (Score:2)
Essentially, anyone who plugs straight into an IXP like MAE-East, PAIX, or EIX. That is to say, divisions of Verizon, AT&T, Switch & Data, etc (I stress that it's just divisions within those, not the companies as a whole; Verizon residential DSL still needs an upstream to get to the IPX, and that upstream may or may not be Verizon). At that point, you're practically (even if not nominally) peering with the res
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:2, Insightful)
No they don't, at least that's my understanding as of now. AT&T is free to block that traffic, but then again all the people who connect to AT&T are free to stop doing business with them. Perhaps AT&T is wineing about the free market and wants to use the government to force Google to pay no matter what. Perhaps Google wants to use the government to
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is not so at all. Each network has a peering agreement with the other networks. The second in line and the first total up the amount of traffic they send and receive from one another and then one pays the other the difference or they call it even based upon the contract they've signed.
AT&T's complaint is that they have to carry this traffic for free across their network, and get nothing from thi
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:2)
So let them. But take away their common-carrier status if they do.
See how they like them apples.
(Losing common-carrier status would make them liable for the content they carry -- copyright infringements, pr0n, whatever...)
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:2)
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:5, Informative)
As someone who used to be a network architect in a Tier 1 global telco I can say only two words: Utter bollocks. Get a clue would ya?.
Traffic is carried between two autonomous systems on the Internet if there is a transit or peering agreement. In your example either Covad or Comcast is paying for transit from AT&T. Otherwise they will not get the routing table entries for each other. AT&T is definitely not doing it for free. If Covad and Comcast were directly connected it could have been either a peering agreement under which they exchange traffic at no cost to each other or once again a transit (one of the buying from the other).
What is happening here and what Net neutrality is all about is that in the US the public peering points used to be run by big telcos like MCI (f.e MAE East or MAE West). MCI and friends deliberately made them suck really bad around 7 years ago so that people switch to buying transit. The telcos themselves switched to private peering agreements. Thus, the tier 1 cartel creation was complete (it started to coalesce around 3-4 years prior to that). As a result in the US an ISP like the ones you mention usually has 2-3 transit connections for which it pays and very few private peerings where it exchanges traffic.
Compared to that in EU a similar ISP has 2-3 transit connections and 20-30+ peering agreements across public peering points. The private peerings can be counted on the fingers of one hand. This changes the overall traffic pattern considerably and most of the traffic is going across peering points not across a tier 1 telco like AT&T. As a collegue of mine jokingly put it a few years back: "The UK Internet backbone consists of one floor in a building in Docklands". In other words the Linx has become the backbone. As a result the transit ISPs can no longer hold their customers for ransom with QoS threats the way the Tier 1 cartel is doing it in the US.
Futher to that, the fix for the no-net-neutrality is trivial. Someone with the resources to do this who does not have the conflict of interest (the way MCI used to) should reestablish the public peering points and run them using the same model and rules as the successfull ones on this side of the pond like Linx, DGIX, etc. The resources to run this are a drop in the ocean for the likes of Google and Yahoo and it will restore the healthy network economics in less then half a year. In fact it will be cheaper than moaning and trying to graft congresskriters.
And if they do not do this the telcos will get them by their balls and their wallets will quickly follow. Frankly, I would be surprised if we do not see Google Peering or Yahoo Peering by the end of the year
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:2)
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:2)
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:2)
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:2)
I said in my original post that "I used to be a network architect in a Tier 1 telco". It's been 5 years since. I am no longer in this part of the industry so many thanks for the updated numbers and the corrections.
I agree with you that US and EU have diverged a lot over the years. It started at least as far back as 8 years ago if not earlier. 7 years ago we had seagulls coming across the pond and screaming at us that "public peering is crap, we need to switch to private". That has not changed. The majority
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:4, Informative)
Peering agreements only exist between two providers who pass roughly equal amounts of traffic between eachother. It's just an agreement that say: I'm passing 1000TB of traffic to you, and your passing 1000TB to me, so we'll carry each others traffic for free.
If one of the companies loses market share, they will not renew the agreement. Take a look at what happened with Level1 and Cogent (IIRC)
Re:Why the red herring? (Score:2)
that pay them to connect to the internet, and not to
*just* their network. Network effect.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The law of unintended consequences at work (Score:4, Insightful)
The biggest barrier is the last mile. You don't want every Tom, Dick and Harry digging up the streets to lay fiber, so localities make agreements with a few players. The problem is, some of these players like the phone company and the cable giants, has historically made exclusive agreements and done their best to keep the public from knowing. (Time Warner has packed town hall meeting with employees so the citizens wouldn't be able to speak)
So, in steps the State and Federal governments. Legislation is proposed to limit the big players, since they have defacto monopolies. These players, sensing that the new law would cost them money, send their paid lobbists to increase their monopoly status. Hilarity ensues.
Re:The law of unintended consequences at work (Score:3, Insightful)
So dig up the streets once and lay some nice big conduit for every tom dick and harry to pay to install in. When its full, you'll have received enough to dig the streets up again (several years later) and lay another nice big conduit. If the company fails they get a choice of pulling their lines out or selling them to the city to get the installation cost back, and the next company
Re:The law of unintended consequences at work (Score:2)
Say you are the mayor of a large town/city, and you get pipes laid that everyone can use. You'll have to spend money. Some other politician can outspend you getting elected knowing that he can sell off your infrastructure to
Monkey suits... (Score:2, Interesting)
The Confusion is almost all on their side of the argument. It would be nice if congress would look at how things work before they try to pass laws about technology.
Keep it limited (Score:2, Insightful)
My understanding (Score:3, Interesting)
The truth is that we are probably better off with no new laws at all. Let the companies who screw with traffic go broke, and let the market force neutral access and not the government.
Re:My understanding (Score:4, Insightful)
What makes you think the market can force neutral access? Remember Betamax? Undeniably the better format technically, yet the market chose the inferior format. The free market isn't magic. If people are too stupid to regulate something correctly, what makes you think they can acheive a better outcome through random purchasing? Besides, we are dealing with oligopolies here, there is no free market. Adam Smith's invisible hand only works in certain limited circumstances, libertarian rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding.
Re:My understanding (Score:2)
Re:My understanding (Score:2)
I might be wrong, but my understanding is that the main enemies of network neutrality are the last mile providers. After all, that's the only place where bandwidth is limited as a practical matter, and therefore where competition cannot easily "route around" d
Net neutrality looks dead (Score:4, Interesting)
Not quite dead (Score:3, Informative)
First, the House net neutrality vote was for a net neutrality amendment to a larger bill(COPE). They didn't include it obviously.
Now, the Senate is considering their version of the bill. Their version may or may not include the net neutrality provision. Talking Points Memo is keeping a tally of where Senators currently stand [talkingpointsmemo.com].
Ideally, the Senate includes it in their version of the bill. Then, the bill will go to conference to iron out the differences between th
TV over IP / FIOS (Score:4, Interesting)
In general, competition for cable is a good thing. However, what is not often discussed is that TV content would come over a dedicated connection from verizon that you the subscriber would not have access to directly (at least, this is my understanding). The really really bad thing about this is that it would let verizon do what companies in the mobile space are doing: mixing transport (delivering the bits) with content control. In the mobile space this has been a terrific failure for most customers as the wireless companies control the delivery channel and the portals (what applications and ring tones are available).
I think the critical issue here is that we need to insist that the delivery pipe from verizon is a level playing field and that others can delivery TV content if they so choose. The pipe would still be seperate from normal internet access but I would be able to choose my HDTV provider who would let me pick the "geek" bundle of channels (plus oxygen for the wife) and who would undercut both verizon and comcast.
Verizon and the cable companies are natural monopolies: there is no way around that. Verizon is sinking tons of money into deploying FIOS: they should be compensated for that deployment. However, that compensation should not comes with strings attached - they should bill the customer for access to a high speed pipe dedicated to video and that's it.
Re:TV over IP / FIOS (Score:2)
Moonie Times (Score:2, Flamebait)
That Moonie editorial isn't merely "confused", unless you want to call fascist zombies "confused". It's evil.
Re:Moonie Times (Score:2)
100% Troll
You missed, TrollMod! Zombies have lousy aim.
So, out of curiousity.... (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason I'm asking is cause, as the article points out, I don't pay $$$ for a fat pipe, I pay $$$ for a fat pipe to these sites.
And if necessary, I'll pay someone else $$$ for a fat pipe.
So...if we lose net neutrality, what prevents Google (or others) from extorting AT&T?
Pipes for free? Hell, before we're done, we'll charge AT&T to use their pipes!
Re:So, out of curiousity.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think net neutrality is a good idea in theory, but I am VERY afraid of
Re:So, out of curiousity.... (Score:2)
Re:So, out of curiousity.... (Score:2)
Net Doublecharge (Score:4, Insightful)
AT&T wants to charge Google for carrying Google Net traffic, even if Google isn't directly connected to AT&T. Let's say Google is connected to GCom, which is connected to AT&T, and Google users are connected to UCom, which is connected to AT&T (of course there are really many more intermediaries, but the system works exactly the same). Google pays GCom for its traffic, while users pay UCom for their traffic. GCom and UCom each pay AT&T to carry their traffic. AT&T gets paid its portion by Google and its users through those intermediaries. AT&T gets paid twice, once in each direction, for every transaction, without marketing the traffic: Google does that risky part.
AT&T just wants to doublecharge Google, because 1: Google has money, and 2: AT&T has a blackmail toolkit, including the huge network used by so many people, and Congress. If they just raised their rates, the traffic would flow over the redundant Internet to their cheaper competitors. So they're getting their cartel^Windustry to add a new kind of charge that everyone will collect, killing competition.
What does the telecom carrier industry plan beyond just ripping off everyone paying for our distributed Net access? To start, they're planning to suck up the "fast lane" with video, IPTV, to "compete" with cable companies and independent distributors. Including YouTube and any other upstart not in the telco club. Charging competitors outside the cartel too much to stay in the game, just like they killed the DSL competition. They'll also squeeze out any upstart VoIP competition, so their core voice business can keep its 20th Century domain intact.
Of course, along the way, they'll kick the crap out of any independent media they carry which tells the truth to the people. With voice, video and data under their privileged control, as well as the government, how can they lose?
MOD PARENT INSIGHTFUL (Score:2)
Re:Net Doublecharge (Score:2)
Once again, The good doctor boils to down to the brass tacks. Who is this Doc Ruby? He just has this way of explaining complex issues in an easy to grasp manner. Can I fit in anymore accolades and cool idioms?
Gushfest mode off.
I know some have called you a dumbass, but damnit, you have this excellent manner of calling bullshit. Sure you can be abrasive sometimes, but nobody's perfect.
Yes, mod this up.
Disclaimer: I hate the phone company. And the cable company too.
Re:Net Doublecharge (Score:2)
Geeks used to have a pretty safe community, resisting the bullshit of the outside world through an unconscious strategy of alienation and antisocial habits. But since HTML dropped the barriers to entry to geek culture while making geek subjects some of the most powerful and valuable in the world, geekery has been flooded with unprecedented bullshit.
I've been lucky to grow up in geek culture since it wasn't for kids. And to hav
Re:Net Doublecharge (Score:2)
That's the whole point. AT&T gets both UCom and GCom to pay AT&T for access to the same traffic. If anything, AT&T is getting paid twice already, and wants to get paid again for the triplecharge.
If I left anything out of my simple descr
Re:Net Doublecharge (Score:2)
Cha-Ching Cha-Ching, Money, it's a drag...
Honestly I see a substantial digital war looming.. (Score:2)
Of course, I also think that this would be short-lived, and if the powers that be really do want to change the neutrality of the internet, they will, and that's that.
Reply from Senator Durbin (Score:2)
Durbin has taken $37,000 in the past 6 years from telco PACs. Not a fortune, but might cause him to vote to favor Bill Daley, brother to the mayor of Chicago and shill for SBC ne AT&T.
- - -
Durbin's Office Wrote:
Thank you for contacting me about taxing Internet access and regulating Internet content delivery. I appreciate hearing fr
Re:Reply from Senator Durbin (Score:2)
Re:Reply from Senator Durbin (Score:2)
The pipes are not yet full (Score:2)
If we start paying a premium for some bandwidth, then a 2gb/s pipe may have 1gb/s of premium paying traffic on it, and all the receivers of that traffic will be happy. But there also might be 100gb/s of non-premium paying traffic. From the carrier's standpoint, that's not a problem. Who cares if other traffic can't get through? T
List (Score:4, Informative)
More importantly, if you don't like where your senators stand, give them a call.
It hurts new companies MUCH more than Google (Score:3, Insightful)
But if I come up with the next YouTube, I not only have to pay for my bandwidth, I'll also have to pay fees to all the other providers so my site isn't slow for their customers. This model empowers the telcos to keep Google on top and YouTube on bottom.
The FCC has provided protection of network neutrality up until just recently. All that is being asked is that it be reinstated so the telcos can't act on their short-sighted and greedy urges. So enough with the 'regulation is bad' crap. Do you really want to trust the telcos to do the right thing without it?!?
Get informed. Get irate. Call your representative in the Senate. If you don't, you might regret it later.
If you still don't get it, ask the ninja:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H69eCYcDcuQ [youtube.com]
Guys, guys guys (Score:2)
Net neutrality will help us stalk Registered Sex Offenders (TM) and will help catch child predators on myspace.com. It will also help relieve gas prices and slow down illegal immigration.
We have to present the story in a context of issues that actually have significance.
I mean...come on guys...hav
i DO NOT believe this ! What the hell is 'Lobbyist (Score:2)
PAID people that believe and defend WHOEVER PAYS THEM FIRST.
Whatever might be the truth, they set up fake grassroots organisations, launch advertisement and (dis)information campaigns in order to do the bidding of their payer.
What kind of phenomenon is this ?
What kind of democratic practice is this ? Liberty to get paid and DECEIVE or OUST anybody who might stand in the way.
I can understand this with lawyers, it is a concept of HAVING to defend the defendant, with the FACTS at hand.
Bu
Internet is owned by the phone companies. (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.businessweek.com/1998/29/b3587124.htm [businessweek.com]
You knew they would try this. If you didn't then you are stupid.
Cringley had a piece on this. I guess it doesn't make sense for them pay for a network that cannibalizes their long distance which voip does.http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit200
Unlike this article. The phone companies DO own the net.
http://www.networkingpipeline.com/blog/archives/2
This is the end of the internet.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/chester [thenation.com]
We need LOWER prices and faster speeds. I don't the phone companies with their history and now their attack on this network are going to be for that.
Ultimately we need a public municipal lowcost network with backbone owned by NO ONE.
The problem is NOT google, youtube etc etc (Score:2)
The solution is to increase costs. ISPs should stop offering "Unlimited" and start adding either bandwidth limits (use more than that and you get a bill at the end of the month) or traffic shaping (I dont mean discriminating by protocol, I mean that you get full speed on all protocols untill you have used a certain amount of bandwidth then you go down to a slower speed on all protocols, my IS
this one is better (Score:3, Funny)
http://www.askaninja.com/news/2006/05/11/ask-a-ni
network neutrality == gluereed
Re:Same story, second verse, same as the first (Score:3, Interesting)
I began to read up on this net neutrality looking for information and expanding my opinion. I personally came to the idea that net neutrality isn't all its cracked up to be. I understand the arguments for it, but I cant help but think that different typ
Re:Same story, second verse, same as the first (Score:2)
In reply to this idea, I ask... do you suppose Comcast cares whether your game playing is slow? My guess is no - that is not one of their concerns. If almost all of their customers were huge game players, then maybe, but that is not the case. Few people care (or will even notice) if it tak
Re:Same story, second verse, same as the first (Score:2)
Re:Same story, second verse, same as the first (Score:3, Insightful)
Because, one thing is for sure, without neutrality, you'd get exactly what you do NOT want. Webpage providers, especially ones like Google or Amazon, will pay the information highway tax. So webpages come in without delay. Game servers (at lease private game servers that host games like Counterstrike or other multiplayer gam
Re:Same story, second verse, same as the first (Score:5, Insightful)
1) If you want a low-latency connection for gaming, nothing today stops you from doing that today. Contact your local telecom and ISPs and ask them what latencies they offer and at what price. There's nothing wrong with doing that, it happens today all the time.
For example, I work for a telemedicine company and our clients are hospitals who use low-latency high-bandwidth pipes, and they pay extra for that. They prioritize the audio/video traffic over the HTTP requests.
2) This would be a net neutrality issue if Microsoft paid Comcast to prioritize XBOX Live traffic over Playstation traffic. Or if Comcast bandwidth capped World of Warcraft traffic unless Blizzard or their customers paid them extra.
Re:Same story, second verse, same as the first (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Big web sites should pay because they're such a load on us.
Big web sites, like Google, are, in fact, the reason that any ISP large or small even has residential and small business services. Without these portal and the like, it would be like selling a pipe that doesn't connect to a water supply.
2. We have to do this to assure the majority of our customers aren't unduly effected by a few big downloaders.
Traffic shaping has been around for years. The small ISP I worked for regularly throttled down P2P traffic, using nothing more than a couple of Linux boxes. This argument is a non-starter.
What it boils down to is that Congress is once again whoring itself to telecom giants who, rather than evolving their business models to fit the Internet, are using their money and their knowledge of just how willingly politicians will prostitute themselves. These guys are simply electronic mobsters, using IP traffic as their weapon of choice to push their weight around. It's despicable, but expected. What's sad is that Congress is so gleeful in selling out the average Internet user. There truly is no shame, no sense of civic responsbility or any ability to understand the incredible information tool which is now threatened by ugly old behemoths.
Re:Same story, second verse, same as the first (Score:2)
Yes. And though I'm probably going to get modded into oblivion for saying this, the net neutrality bill was defeated along party lines with Republicans selling your internet to corporations.
The next time you, or a friend of yours, decides they are going
Re:Same story, second verse, same as the first (Score:2)
I blame William Jefferson (for making the GOP overconfident that they'd defanged the "culture of corruption" issue).
Re:Same story, second verse, same as the first (Score:2)
VoIP is an interesting example... (Score:2)
You mention VoIP, but are you aware that Comcast has been known to reduce the bandwidth available for other VoIP providers that their subscribers use... in the areas where Comcast offers IP phone service? I use Comcast cable internet, and I use Vonage, and I'm fine because for now, Comcast doesn't offer phone service in my area. But as soon as they start offering it, I'm l
Re:Lack of basic understanding (Score:2)
Re:Lack of basic understanding (Score:5, Insightful)
DSL/cable isn't being offered at a loss. This is simply untrue! Go check out the financial statements of your local exchange carrier (LEC) http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml [sec.gov]
Lots of them make huge coin and are paying out big dividends.
Forget the huge windfall later, most assume that data will eventually be commoditized in the way voice was (i.e., things will get worse).
Re:Lack of basic understanding (Score:2)
Continue paying 70 bucks a month (that's what 1024/256 costs here) and only be allowed to actually use those 1024/256 on pages I don't want to see.
Pay 200 a month for 512/64 and actually get 512 to the pages I want to see.
Not so tough, that decision, if you ask me.
Re:Right for DSL price WRONG FOR CABLE (Score:2)
DSL for $19.95 won't make money back for almost 24 months of the roll out.
However, Cable makes money the instant they hook you up.
How do I know this? I used to work for a 3rd party major ISP that leased DSL lines and Cable connections.
Basically DSL was a money hole (at least in 2003)... You'd
Re:Right for DSL price WRONG FOR CABLE (Score:2)
Pretty much yes... It was an unproven service for some (especially Bellsouth... SBC roll outs weren't as bit of a problem) and the ISP ended up paying the telcos too much Central Office fees for the initial installation that there had to be some sort of threat to keep the customer from cancelling and go through the troubleshooting process to make sure DSL could be installed. Does
Re:Right for DSL price WRONG FOR CABLE (Score:2)
Re:Lack of basic understanding (Score:2)
Re:Lack of basic understanding (Score:2)
I call BS. Sorry, no, I do not believe the idea that paying $50/mo is accepting charity, or that I should feel lucky for the privelige of paying to go on the Internet.
If Comcast et. al. aren't happy with the bandwidth business, perhaps they should just leave. Somebody else will come in to collect my $50/mo., I'm willing to bet on it. Bandwidth is cheap and it gets c
Re:Lack of basic understanding (Score:2)
The reality is that the consumer broadband market is like many other markets...they oversell their product with the knowledge that most customers will use far less bandwidth than they pay for. Sure, most peo
Re:Willingness to pay for a fat pipe (Score:2)
Re:AT&T CEO G.R.E.E.D.Y. (Score:2)
But the point here is that these are all based on established contractual agreements. AT&T is trying to chan