BellSouth Will Charge Providers For Performance 594
smooth wombat writes "In a follow-up to this Slashdot story from last month, BellSouth has confirmed that it is in discussions with content providers to levy charges to reliably and speedily deliver content and services of the providers.
Bill Smith, chief technology officer at BellSouth justified content charging companies by saying they are using the telco's network without paying for it. "
There goes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There goes (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:There goes (Score:5, Interesting)
Competition? (Score:5, Interesting)
-Rick
Re:Competition? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Competition? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm still working on getting rid of their $65/month phone bill (doesnt include long distance)
Bell South is a greedy, awful corporation. I hope this latest attempt hurts them terribly.
Re:There goes (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to hope so. Also, those users who see poor performance on a website should sue as well, because users DO pay for the use of the lines. This is without a question extortion. Bell South says "they don't pay for the lines" as if no one at all pays for them. But you and I pay for the lines - so Bell South wants to be paid twice for the same slice of cake.
I hope this gets challenged in court and Bell South gets the spanking it deserves. This makes me so sick.
Re:There goes (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:There goes (Score:5, Interesting)
So they completely plan on screwing the end user. But hey as long as they are loyal to their shareholders who gives a flip about you lousy customers, you cost too much using all of that bandwidth we are selling to you! This doesnt remind me anything of monopolistic business practices.
Re:There goes (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:There goes (Score:3, Informative)
Should I consider myself lucky that at least I have access both both DSL and cable, so the companies stay at least a tiny bit competitive?
Re:There goes (Score:4, Insightful)
Another reason is that our government incurs a HUGE amount of administrative overhead in telecommunications, with all kinds of rules and regulations, policies, paperwork, requirements, etc... Not that all those are necessarily bad things, especially in a competitive telecom market, but it does add to cost.
Re:There goes (Score:4, Insightful)
Because many countries in those regions have some active policy to promote internet availability, and at least in case of Europe, have regulations to level the playing field for competitors of their former state monopoly telcos.
Breaking up AT&T years ago bought the system time, but didn't solve the actual problem, having created a 'monster' that does not need to care about its customers.
It did not solve the actual problem because it failed to seperate service and infrastructure, your typical local telco still provides both, and few people have a choice between multiple local providers. Sure, you can drop the telephny network alltogether, go cable and use VOIP, and let someone else interface you with the telephony network, but there we just move to another kind of infrastructure dominated by companies with an even bigger problem, not only do they do infrastructure and service, they strongly believe they are also doing content (filtering and management that is)
This problem might be solvable by forcing slightly different rules on those active in the telco market, you either sell infrastructure and everything related to that, or you sell end-user services. You can't do both, or when you do, you have to make your infrastructure available to the competition for a fair price (ah.. seem to remember that for a while such a condition existed in the USA..)
Bottomline, the solution is in forcing both telcos and cable companies to stop abusing the effective local monopolies that they currently hold.
Re:There goes (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh wait, this one happens...
Re:There goes (Score:3, Insightful)
So... your bank charges you for using a foreign ATM. The foreign bank charges you for using their ATM with a foreign account. That is why when you withdraw $20, you get debitted
Re:There goes (Score:3, Interesting)
The nice thing here is that as a service provider, I don't need to pay BellSouth anything because I am not under contract with them. If they lock
Re:There goes (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:There goes (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it odd that the main arguement DSL used in early 2000 was the connection is not shared as it is with cable. Now as a subscriber, I can apparently pay for 1M service, but only get 500K unless the service provider is paying Bellsouth (and if this flys, every other telco) for the extra bandwidth?
When customers realize Bellsouth is not providing the service they are paying for, there's going to be some backlash. This is what happens when the stock market is running a company. Executives do stupid things to try and make their bouns.
Re:There goes (Score:3, Insightful)
The claims of "no
Re:There goes (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:There goes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:There goes (Score:5, Funny)
LobbyMan! and InternBoy shall smite thee with their affidavit-ray guns!
Re:There goes (Score:5, Informative)
Re:There goes (Score:5, Informative)
See the damn Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org]:
The key FCC Order on this point is: IN RE FEDERAL-STATE JOINT BOARD ON UNIVERSAL SERVICE, 13 FCC Rcd. 11501 (1998), which holds that ISP service (both "retail" and backbone) is an "information service" (not subject to common carrier obligations) rather than a "telecommunications service" (which might be classified as "common carriage").
Re:There goes (Score:5, Insightful)
If the FCC did not close their eyes when the Tier1 effectively formed a cartel and killed all peering points around 2000 and if it did not allow babybells to grow back to mabell size it would not have happened. Now there is little that can be done besides restarting the MaBell breakup process
Your ISP customers paid you, numbnuts... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Your ISP customers paid you, numbnuts... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Your ISP customers paid you, numbnuts... (Score:4, Interesting)
Give the man a prize.
If you include company's logo in your video game without asking you are likely to get a nastygram from their lawyers insisting you remove it.
If you contact them and ask them how much they want to license the logo to you they will quote you a price and gladly take your money.
But. . .
If you contact them and ask them what they will pay for product placement . .
Learn the equation. Work the side that works for you.
KFG
Re:Your ISP customers paid you, numbnuts... (Score:5, Informative)
I'll wait...
Back? Good.
This is a perfect example of what is going to happen here. First, only a few stupid companies will pay Bell South (Even SCO got some takers). Then the content providers will start charging Bell South to allow users of the Bell South internet service to access their web sites. It's already started. The content providers know that they're in charge. There are so many ISPs out there that the ISP needs the content more than the content providers need any single ISP. Bell South will figure this out, or they will lose customers. Once again, the free market works.
And I bet you were only half serious.
Re:Your ISP customers paid you, numbnuts... (Score:4, Informative)
It wouldn't be my decision, it would be up to the business, but every customer turned away is a customer lost, as far as most businesses are concerned. If our competition was paying BellSouth and we weren't, we'd definately lose customers to them. Let's say we do $100,000 / month (it's actually more, but I'm not prepared to disclose real figures =)) in sales for 1,000 customers. Let's say that of that, 10% is profit, and BellSouth wants to charge us $1 per customer. We'd be looking at giving up $10 per customer in profit, vs giving up $1 per customer. As sleezy (and potentially illegal) as this deal is, that $9 in un-lost sales would make it worthwhile.
No, it won't be the content providers that cause this idea to fall apart. It'll be the customers. Personally, I'd be looking for a new ISP today if I had Bell South. When other customers get wind that "accelerated" websites / services are in fact just not crippled, they'll be doing the same.
Someone will get the idea to start a class action lawsuit, and this'll end it once and for all. As was mentioned elsewhere, the company can only bill once for a given service. They can either choose to bill the end user (the current model), or they can choose to bill the content providers, but not both. In fact, this is no different from them wanting to charge other phone companies every time you receive a call from one. I doubt congress & the legal system will see it any differently. Sadly, when the class action suit settles, and BS goes bankrupt, it'll be our tax dollars that bail them out, while the C*O's walk away with their golden parachutes.
Re:Gack! Re:Your ISP customers paid you, numbnuts. (Score:3, Insightful)
It has nothing to do with funding the channels, it has to do with funding the company's subscription fee for the channels. If they offered everything a-la-carte, the less popular channels may not get enough subscribers for your cable company to pay the flat fee requi
Re:Your ISP customers paid you, numbnuts... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Your ISP customers paid you, numbnuts... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Your ISP customers paid you, numbnuts... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Your ISP customers paid you, numbnuts... (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course they want that! They'll take whatever they can get, and they'll naturally target things like VoIP and media (IPTV, music, etc.) services first.
But to play devil's advocate for a moment: they're threatened by people who want to provide, for example, broadband VoIP services, partly because VoIP providers haven't been saddled with the same baggage as traditional telephone operators (though that's changing bit by bit as well), just as IPTV-over-br
Errata (Score:3, Insightful)
should have read
Now, if Bellsouth loses {some large number} of customers to VoIP
...but the filter didn't accept the carats I originally enclosed it with.
Also, I'm well aware that many of these providers' networks were originally built witt government subsidies (i.e., our taxes), and/or continue to be built and maintained at very tax-advantaged rates, and that many operators have what is essentially a government-mandated monopoly for the "last mile". However, even
Re:Your ISP customers paid you, numbnuts... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Your ISP customers paid you, numbnuts... (Score:3, Informative)
It isn't supposed to in a literal sense. You can't both possess and consume an item since by consuming it you lose possession, but guess what the "meaning" of the cliche is? It is to say that what you want is impossible, and simultaneously possessing and consuming something is... impossible.
Paid twice (Score:2, Interesting)
They aren't USING anything! (Score:5, Insightful)
Bell greed won't go away (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. It's amazing this "eyeballs vs. content" battle still hasn't gone away, especially after several notable disasters where the eyeball owners (service providers to consumers) tried to exact a toll for the content their subscribers were consuming.
I was at the Commercial Internet Exchange annual meeting in 1996 when this issue popped up there. Many theorized then that the Bells, who had lost out on their NSFNET NAP scheme (which Al Gore was a strong proponent of), would find another way to get a measured use model into the net. It's apparent they still dream of ratcheting measured use costs, since they happen to be rather good at billing complicated use schemes. Still, it's amazing to wonder how they think they can carry this out. What would they do - require a fee per domain name to be consumed by a household (and enforce it how? That's one heck of an ACL - as if RBOC DSL service isn't sluggish enough already - Qwest can't get you down the street from home to serving wire center under 40-45 ms typically).
Or would you block it on an AS basis and pick up the whole bilaterial battle that saw Exodus and BBN (if my history is correct) fight? Unfortunately for the RBOCs, there are alternatives to their mediocre DSL. If you think a consumer will pay $55 for partial Internet when they can get complete service from the cable or wireless provider for the same fee, they're gone.
Re:Bell greed won't go away (Score:5, Interesting)
- Cap all traffic from everywhere at a certain rate or usage limit
- Charge either provider or subscriber for a higher bandwidth cap on a site. A subscriber could have a list of sites they would like as "premium" - maybe even submit a bookmark list on a micropayment per address scheme. The provider would of course pay for their sites or even individual files to be "premium".
- (obscene) Profit!!!
Think of it as a modified cable business model.Hughes Network Systems to the rescue! (EP1050117) (Score:5, Interesting)
4. Pay all your obscene profit (and then some...) back to HNS, as patent infringment fees. Just Read claim #12 of EP1050117 [espacenet.com]: Yes, they do patent stuff such as this (don't be fooled by the complicated language... it's really as trivial as "limit bandwidth by webserver and user"). While I usually don't agree with software patents, I have to admit that in this case it's beneficial: at least it prevents Bellsouth from being too annoying to its users and to the world at large
Re:Bell greed won't go away (Score:4, Interesting)
In the scenario where the Bells charge the customer more for a select couple of sites, if I were Google or Yahoo!, I'd be pretty pissed that a Bell thought it could charge more for MY services.
"We'll give you better Google" assumes that they have the right to mess with Google at all.
Re:Bell greed won't go away (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's see who really needs whom more.
They could just kill the QoS of voip or video (Score:3, Insightful)
What they can do is give VoIP packets a bad experience, and drop VPN packets on the floor altogeher. Want SSH? pay more. Want IPSec? Pay much more (in theory Comcast charge a premium for this BTW). But VoIP? you just slow down the packets. Bandwidth can be maintained, but suddely google talk and yahoo phone st
Re:Bell greed won't go away (Score:3, Interesting)
No, they're looking to pursue the IP QoS extortion model, which is a bit more subtle. It's a "frog in a pot" scenario: at first, just a few companies pay extra for a higher level of service. After a while, so many high-profile, high-bandwidth sites are paying that the service for non-paying sources
Re:They aren't USING anything! (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not sure that this is an apt analogy. I am not sure what a good analogy would be. To use the shipping analogy from the article however, wouldn't it be like a shippee paying UPS or FEDEx a monthly fee for unlimited deliveries, and then having UPS or FEDEx ask the shipper to pay part of the cost?
In the artcile they say that they may ask apple for a nicklle or dime per song downloaded. I pay my cable internet provider $60 a month for access- now they want content providers to pay too? This is ridiculous. What do they think they are, the government? (the gov't charges you tax on gas for roads, and other road taxes, yet you still must pay tolls at times...)
Re:They aren't USING anything! (Score:3, Funny)
More like having an all-you-can-eat buffet, charging the customers to eat, then charging the farmers for the food.
Re:They aren't USING anything! (Score:3, Informative)
They are talking about the space in the middle. These are the backbone providers. Try doing a tracert to somewhere far. If you're in the US try bbc.co.uk or vise-versa. These folks are talking about all of those "hops" your data makes getting from say the slashdot server to OSDN to backbone provider to your isp then to you. It's not a single connection downloading a file, it's hundreds of parts taking many paths that get
Re:They aren't USING anything! (Score:5, Informative)
I understand what you're saying, but it serves no purpose in this conversation.
When someone in the UK requests something from a US-based webpage (say, for instance, my employer, Virginia Tech), the data goes from Virginia Tech to Sprint, across the ocean, and to the UK service provider, then to the end user. Or, it might go from Sprint to another carrier in Mae East and then across the ocean. Never through Bell South, though.
This is the entire point of the outrage at this: If your business is almost entirely servicing end users as an ISP (as bellsouth's is), then THE ONLY REASON for data to go across your network is to get to your end users.
See also: BGP and AS Path-length. Any ISP worth a goddamn isn't going to avertise that their network is an excellent place for bandwidth to be put through; likewise, major backbone routers aren't going to route data through un-needed hops.
The outrage is due to the fact that probably almost all the data destined INTO bellsouth's network is destined to be delivered to their end users. That transit has already been paid for by the ISP subscribers. If they were charging for data sent across bell south, i.e. Sprintlink -> BellSouth -> Quest -> The UK, then it would be wierd and unethical, but 1.) they're not a backbone, 2.) they're not a common carrier, and 3.) even if they wanted to charge for that, people would just adjust their routing tables to use a different route via prepending the bellsouth ASN's. The internet would move on - it's designed for these kinds of things. However, bellsouth has a monopoly on internet routing destined for their end users, and is therefore trying to leverage that to charge tolls.
Saying they want to get paid twice for the exact same data going to the exact same places is exactly correct.
~Will
Re:They aren't USING anything! (Score:3, Interesting)
Bellsouth is [isp-planet.com] a backbone provider here in the US. Don't forget that SBC/AT&T or whoever they are today is thinking of doing this as well. How many content providers have servers on their networks? If they decided to both do this at the same time, that would be a major swath of the US backbone. I see your point about the captive consumer audience, but enough of the backbone here in the US has murmured about this that I think
Re:They aren't USING anything! (Score:3, Informative)
Suscribers are paying for the access already, content providers are paying for their bandwidth, carriers are paying each other to connect to their respective networks, and NOW Bellsouth wants to charg
Wow..change in the world (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wow..change in the world (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Um, you new here? (Score:3, Interesting)
Look at what this could mean: Right now, the whole beauty of the internet is the egalitarian nature of it. I, being just one fellow in a world of billions, can start a site -- any site I choose to really -- and have it seen by the world. If there is a commercial element to my site (ads or products) I then have the potential to compete with some of the biggest names out there. Blogs compete wi
Hurn in Bell (Score:3, Informative)
If we pay for an Internet connection , then it us using their lines to connect to someone
Hurn in Bell I say
Re:Hurn in Bell -- Too Late (Score:3, Interesting)
Too late. That's your cell phone in action. By bringing out the same idea in new technology they have managed to get what they couldn't get with the old technology.
Count the nickels and dimes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously though, these "charges" will of course be passed along to us end users somehow, much like the telcos do now with the fees they are charged (look at your phone bill). More plentiful/intrusive ads, registrations a la NYT (note from mom and teste req'd) or just a flat out service fee. The folks playing MMORPGs will probably see the spike most directly in their monthly fees. Of course this leaves us schleps with personal servers and such with yet one more bill to pay if they get aggressive enough about deciding who a content provider is. The bandwidth wars are begining, methinks.
Ridiculous (Score:5, Funny)
Greed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Greed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Greed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Greed (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure BellSouth recognizes the leverage the larger content providers have, and thus will be going after less established ones.
Also, content providers aren't paying BellSouth to use their lines??!?! Well BellSouth isn't paying the content providers for their content!!!
Re:Greed (Score:4, Insightful)
As I said, I think this is more intended as a way for them to extract tolls from VoIP. They can't stand that they won't be able to charge exorbitant fees for basic phone service anymore, so they are trying to claim that their customers can't access services that don't pay them. It may also be that a couple of Bell South execs saw Google's share price going through the roof and decided that they would try to get a piece of that pie.
Also, I wouldn't count Bell South out on winning this one just yet. The Baby Bells may have the FCC on their side, and the FCC is one of the most corrupt, crony-filled agencies in the entire government. They might be able to buy favorable legislation and regulatory rulings if they can't win in the market.
Is this a surprise? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:they are the lion, we are the lamb (Score:3, Funny)
I guess that would make Slashdot the Valley of Darkness.
Re:Is this a surprise? (Score:3, Insightful)
If nothing else will... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who Do Users Trust More? (Score:5, Insightful)
Their ISP, or a particular content provider, say Google. I see 2 potential outcomes here:
What needs to happen here is that word needs to get out that BS is not offering better service to those who pay, but is rather offering crippled service to those who don't pay. Both statements are true because granting one group of traffic priority over the other reduces the quality of the connection available to the other groups of traffic.
Sounds like the Mafia's movin' into Telco... (Score:5, Funny)
A little JavaScript box pops up: "If youse would like to download the remainder of dis' song, youse need to contribute to the fund, or we can't be held responsible for what might happen to da' data, see?
Re:Sounds like the Mafia's movin' into Telco... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not pay for performance, it's blackmail.
Re:Sounds like the Mafia's movin' into Telco... (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly! And therein lies the joke. This is a pattern of behavior that has been repeated over and over: Big Oil, Railroad Barons, Shipping Magnates, etc. Some group inside an industry decides that they control access to a resource and they try to get every penny from it they can. Eventually they bang their head against the law, because some one comes along and says "Hey, wait a minute, I'm already paying for that!" It's not blackmail, but extortion [answers.com].
Re:Sounds like the Mafia's movin' into Telco... (Score:3, Interesting)
In keeping with the Mafia theme, how about using the RICO [cornell.edu] statute. To quote: "TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 96 > 1961: Definitions > Section 1 "racketeering activity" means - (B) any act which is indictable under any of the following provisions of title 18, United States Code: ..., section 2319A (relating to unauthorized fixation of and trafficking in sound recordings and music videos of live musical performances)..."
Slow (Score:5, Insightful)
Will Bellsouth block access to those sites? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also as to what Mark Cuban said: Don't we already have different levels of service quality? If I pay for dialup access at say $9/month I get a certain amount of bandwidth. If I pony up $25/month for DSL I get even more. If I decide cable is the way to go and pay $50/month, even more than DSL (in my case at least). And finally, if I really want guaranteed access, I pay for business-level service. So what the hell are these poeple talking about? If I'm already paying for my bandwidth, why am I being asked to pay again. Because we all know that it's the consumers who will end up paying these extra fees.
All these old-school legacy companies need to get a swift ass kicking.
Re:Will Bellsouth block access to those sites? (Score:4, Insightful)
It gets better - not only are you only paying for the bandwidth on the client side, the businesses are also already paying for the bandwidth on the server side. Apple has to pay more per month for their connectivity than I do, because they have a lot more bandwidth. Apple's upstream has peering agreements that are supposed to guarantee transport.
So why will Apple wind up going along with this? Why is Mark Cuban in support? Because it allows the big boys to play and kills the little guys. Competition, while a cornerstone of capitalism, is anathema to corporatism. And don't expect our corporatist government to lift a damned finger - they know that your parents and grandparents don't even know this issue exists (assuming the politicians do), let alone understand it. Noone is going to vote them out if they don't take action. They may threaten to take action, but only so they can get a pile of cash from whoever took Abrahamoff's job. It will almost certainly never be an issue, and even if it does become an issue, they will happily muddle it with vague preaching about fair markets and gloss over the monopoly issue.
"It would be a shame if.... (Score:5, Insightful)
How is this different from paying off the guys with the baseball bats? Or having to hire a "fixer" to get your building permit?
And just how would they be able to "enforce" anything? I see a RICO lawsuit headed their way...
Re:"It would be a shame if.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems that some of the actions of big businesses differ (in spirit) less and less from those of organized crime. The objects of their businesses may be different (telecommunications vs., say, cocaine and sports bookies), but their methods are becoming startlingly similar. Protection schemes. Price fixing. Extortion and intimidation.
And does anybody really believe that Enron witness *really* committed suicide? At a stop light? C'mon...
Doesn't the internet user pay for the network usa? (Score:4, Insightful)
>content charging companies by saying they are using the telco's
>network without paying for it.
I thought the internet service customer was the one paying for use of the vendor's network?? As in, I as a Comcast cablemodem customer am paying for use of Comcast's network. Comcast's product that I am buying from them is the ability to access Google, hotmail, webmd, or whoever's web sites I care to look at.
It sounds like they're wanting to double-charge for a single service. Kindof like if Walmart decided to charge me for the DVD, and also charge the movie producers for the right to have their DVD sold in Walmart's store.
I've heard rumors that Verizon may be considering this policy as well while I've been asking around about DSL and FIOS. If they pull a prank like this, I may stick with Comcast, even though I'm relatively unhappy with their service's reliability in my case.
Here is a challenge to BellSouth customers... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean it, vote with your dollars and with your feet, so to speak, and leave Bell $outh behind for good. Send a clear message to the extortionists that they are: we won't tolerate this, we won't accept this and you will pay the price for your stupidity.
I just hope Bell South will understand the message when they see their customers desert in droves.
Re:Here is a challenge to BellSouth customers... (Score:4, Insightful)
Take my example, back when I lived in South Florida. Bellsouth is the local bell, Adelphia the local cable provider.
Adelphia refused to offer two way cable service in my area - meaning that I'd have a cable modem for downstream and DIALUP for upstream. Not acceptable.
Bellsouth offered very high priced DSL - at the time, 40 USD/month got you 256kbits down, 128kbits up (or 10 more got you 1500/256 - I know it is less now, but I know more about the situation then).
You could also get DSL service from any number of companies.... that all charged more than Bellsouth. Why? Because Bellsouth would lease their lines for.... you guessed it, 40 USD/month. Meaning no matter what, EVERY ISP you'd choose would have a higher price than BS, pay BS, and get even worse support. For an anecdotal piece of evidence, a friend of mine didn't have his DSL hooked up for 4 months - all because BS decided to not hook it up in a timely manner since a compeditor was using their lines.
Unless you live in one of the areas that has WiFi service, or in an area with a competant Cable company (from what I hear, they are finally thinking about offering two-way in my area - at like 60 USD/month), you CAN'T switch. Bellsouth is a local monopoly, plain and simple. You have bellsouth or dialup. A lovely choice if I do say so myself.
BellSouth's Global Reach? (Score:5, Interesting)
Will traffic between EU addresss be affected by this? EU and Japan? China? Middle east? India? Are Canadian content providers going to have to pay BellSouth extortion money to host for customers outside of the US?
Anyone have any ideas on this? How long has his arm grown while the armies of good lay sleeping?
How is this different... (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe a slight tech difference, but to me in a social context it means exactly the same.
In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Turnabout.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Not Paying? (Score:3, Funny)
>Bill Smith, chief technology officer at BellSouth justified content charging companies by saying they are using the telco's network without paying for it.
So is he saying that CNN is NOT paying for their hookup to the net? Somehow, I don't think that's true. I would guess that wherever their server farm is (might not be Atlanta), the fat pipe connecting it to the rest of the internet already comes with a fat bill from Bell South or some other telco. I guess he's talking more about MS and Google that are already paying someone else, and he wants to add a tariff to every packet from outside the Bell South system. Does that apply only to packets delivered to BS customers or to those that transit their system on their way to somewhere else?
I can see it now:
To: Bob@ourbiz.com
From: John@ourbiz.com
Subject: Closing the big deal
Bob, We can close this deal for six figures if you meet the client for lunch at [this packet of this email can be made available for reading by logging onto tariff.bellsouth.com and authorizing payment of the tariff from your account. If you do not have an account, one can be set up after arranging the account setup fee and monthly payment structure. Have a noce day, Bell South] late we'll lose the whole deal to those slimeballs at theirbiz. Good luck, John.
Couldn't website do this as well? (Score:4, Interesting)
As someone who lives in BellSouth territory... (Score:3, Informative)
BellSouth is stuck with technology that cannot compete on speed, so their response is to make the speed worse? Only in a monopoly telecom would that make any sense.
Comcast is also doing an all-out assault on "the dish", which BellSouth pushes as an alternative to cable. I think Comcast is winning that battle, too.
I'm waiting for the next step where BellSouth tries to buy some legislation to shore up their failing internet business.
The answer: A negative PR (perhaps by google) (Score:5, Insightful)
So let them. But don't pay. And inform the customers WHY they recieve such bad troughput when using their websites.
Imagine e.g. Google, doing a simple revers IP lookup to determine the provider and if it's Ma Bell, adding the following message to their search sites.
Dear Visitor,
We apologize for the possible slowness of our service.
However your provider BellSouth, has decided to demand "bandwith charges" from all major website transmitting data over their network (in addition to any subscription charges from you).
Google has declined to pay those additional charges, as this traffic - like searching via Google - should be (and with all other ISP is) covered with your subscription charge.
If you have any questions, please contact your local BellSouth service center.
Happy Googling!
Tens of thousands of unhappy customers calling BellSouth should make them do another reality check and stop demanding those ridiculous charges.
Pay up BellSouth! (Score:5, Insightful)
Peering (Score:5, Informative)
Data that comes from some other network, like MCI or Level 3, is handled thru a peering agreement with that other network.
Many hosting providers have backbone connections to multiple networks, to make things faster. For example, Gnomovision Co-Lo and Hosting may have direct links to BS, Time Warner, MCI, Level 3 and more. These type of customer shouldn't be affected because they are already paying BS for a link.
Customers that have to go thru peered links seem to be BS' target. They *should* negotiate this with the peer, not the provider.
Google, with their rumored "data center in a container", could just drop a container on BS' network and not peer at all. They'd have to pay connect charges, but they would have a direct link to BS' network.
It seems to me that this would threaten the peering arrangement that makes the Internet function more than anything else.
Note: In order to complain to the FCC you must be a customer of BS, submit your complaint in writing and include a copy of your telephone bill.
-Charles
Providers or customers? (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't this just BellSouth double-billing for the same service? Why not just recover cost from their already paying customers? I assume the answer is that they can't, either for regulatory issue or because they have already maxed out what they think their customers are willing to put up with.
Here's a sneaky/evil idea. If you are an Apple sized company and you recieve this sort of extortion request, degrade the network performance TO BellSouth networks with a big old link to a notice as to why! Let your customers fight their ISP's for you!
Paying for the network (Score:3, Insightful)
It would seem that BellSouth (hereinafter known more appropriately as BS) has forgotten that their CUSTOMERS have already paid for the network. THEY pay BS to be able to pull 3rd party content through the network to their machines. The content providers should charge BS for giving people a reason to get DSL. After all, if they were to all null route BS's IPs, everyone would switch to cable overnight. I just can't imagine advertising with "Access the few parts of the Internet that are too stupid to realize we need them more than they need us" to be all that effective in getting people to sign up.
So, if they actually get providers to pay them for network traffic, does that mean that they will quit treating 'power downloaders' (that is, CUSTOMERS who PAID for unlimited Internet access) like freeloaders?
Big Ocean -- small pond (Score:3, Insightful)
BS and SBC want a closed-content system. There were closed-content systems in the past: GEnie, Prodigy, Compuserve, AOL. Users abandoned them for the open internet, where they could get any content they wanted. The number of households online skyrocketted.
If BS and SBC succeed in levying these fees, they may find users abandoning them, too. What user base will they sell to the content providers then? This plan is doomed.
Offtopic - is this how apache ip blocking works? (Score:3, Informative)
Is this how I would block all of the customers from a specific ISP, if I ever wanted to? I'm not sure why I would, but you never do know...
RewriteEngine on
Rewritemap bssubnet txt:/stuff/bssubnets.txt
RewriteCond ${bssubnet:%{REMOTE_ADDR}} ^b$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{request_uri} !^/your_isp_stinks.html$ [NC]
RewriteRule
Also, does anyone know where I can find the list of all subnets that an ISP might have? Especially the business customers.
Jump ship to where? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Quality of Service (Score:3, Interesting)
http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=842 [zdnet.com]
Why are the cable companies not doing this? Simple; it allows them to crush the telecos.
In my area, we've got 2 cable companies, and 2 telecos. You sign up for DSL/phone service? 2-4 weeks install time, 1 year minimum contract, you often pay per-minute local long distance charges, you pay for your equipment, and your telephone bill is guaranteed to be ~10% high than what you expect. You need customer service?
Re:Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno, there are three people in India for each man, woman, and child in the US. I think they can handle as many calls as we throw at them...