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Small Cable Groups Seek To Break Net Neutrality
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue May 09, 2006 10:56 AM
from the because-gas-and-bandwidth-totally-the-same dept.
from the because-gas-and-bandwidth-totally-the-same dept.
saikou writes "CNet's News.com has a story on the first cable companies openly going against Net Neutrality. As usual, request for equal treatment is labeled as 'special favors', and Google is used as an example of company that should pay for a fast connection to the end user." From the article: "'I think what the phone industry's saying and what we're saying is we've made an investment, and I don't think the government should be coming and telling us how we can work that infrastructure, simple as that,' Commisso said during a panel discussion about issues faced by companies like his, adding, 'Why don't they go and tell the oil companies what they should charge for their damn gas?'"
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Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Google, et al. already pay for their bandwidth! This is just extortion to get their traffic in a higher priority QoS queue.
Re:Umm... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, in other technologies such as telephone and physical mail, companies have shown that's its possible to establish international peering agreements where all the parties get paid their share. Amazingly, all the cost shows up in the end-user price, just like what us "Net Neutrality" people are asking for.
I wonder if mail-order businesses such as NewEgg should pay extra for all that shipping "bandwidth" they are using.
Parent
Re:Umm... (Score:4, Interesting)
You forget that in both of those cases, the "end user" winds up paying more for the use of certain infrastructure, like transoceanic cables, satellite time, or airmail. Users also, with certain exceptions like flat-rate phone service (which still doesn't include overseas calling), pay per actual usage of the service (i.e., per-minute phone rates or postage stamps). And in the case of stamps, you can pay more to get better service (overnight, 1st class v. Parcel Post, etc.)
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Re:Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
No I did not forget. In fact, the price paid was exactly my point. If an ISP wanted to start charging more for longer distance bandwidth, then it would be a similar situation, and one I'd be willing to accept. However that's not what the telcos are asking for at all. They want to tax profitable companies that use their service, and NOT do it through negotiation with the hosting ISP of said company.
If I call Bulgaria, it may cost more, but I still get a bill from AT&T, not from a Bulgarian company. I certainly don't get a bill from "FranceTelecom", or some other intermediary who happened to carry the call. The reason for this is that those companies have worked out profitable peering agreements between themselves. I also do not get charged extra if my call happened to earn me money because it was for business purposes.
How about another analogy: I buy a truck from a car salesman (as an individual). Then I use said truck as part of my contracting business, which turns out to be profitable. Then the car salesman comes back and tells me I owe him more for the truck, as additional fees apply when I make a profit with the truck he sold me. Nothing stating this is in the original sales agreement.
This is exactly what the telcos are now doing. They want to charge extra for bandwidth that is already being paid for, simply for the fact that companies are making a profit off the bandwidth they paid for. If level3 wants more money, they should take it up with their peering ISPs, not the customers. The Entire Cost Should be in the Original Price Paid.
P.S. Large sites already do pay a price based on bandwidth used. It is usually some combination of peak usage and total GB transferred. Individuals are paying mainly for overhead and the last mile infrastructure, which is where most of the investment is anyway (hence the flat fees for most home ISPs).
Parent
Re:Umm... (Score:3, Interesting)
The Cash Cow says "Moooooch." (Score:5, Insightful)
Billions of dollars a year in extortion--I mean, revenue--for the telecommunications companies?
That's really all there is to it. They've figured out that they can't maintain the sort of growth that they've had over the past decade or so (because there's nowhere to expand to), so now they're trying to figure out ways to squeeze more money out of their existing customers. Because even if you don't realize it, everyone using the Internet is an indirect customer of the backbone providers. You pay your ISP, your ISP maybe pays another ISP, that ISP pays for a connection to the backbone. They get their tithe, it just goes via your local provider first.
And there's really no way to rake in the dough like making people pay for something twice. Here's what the backbone providers want: the source of the packets pays for access (a portion of which makes its way up the chain to them), the destination of the packets pays for access (also trickles up to them), and the source and the destination both pay directly for increased QoS if they don't want said packets to spend a few seconds in the purgatorial "low-rent buffer" on their way across the network.
It's just a protection racket, but without any of that messy kneecap-smashing business.
Parent
Re:The Cash Cow says "Moooooch." (Score:5, Insightful)
I would go one step further. To understand what they REALLY want, I think you have to get a bit psychological:
Your average corporate executive types, with their business degrees and business experience, have gotten to where they are by using their understanding of capitalistic concepts like control of supply, scarcity, and material goods. This is especially true of those in the content business (the "traditional" cable and media industries).
The internet, at its most fundamental level, simply doesn't work that way. Sure, you can use the internet to sell advertising, or you can sell access to the infrastructure itself, but the internet is ultimately a free medium: anyone can put anything onto it, and anyone can retrieve anything from it. As someone here once wrote, "trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet." It is the great equalizer; no one "controls" it...and the corporations who utilize it to do business are ultimately just users like the rest of us. And I think because of this (and despite the fact that these corporations themselves benefit from the internet) they subconsciously DESPISE the way it works, because they can't control it.
What do they really want the internet to be? Cable television. They control what is broadcast and distributed and they also control what you can access: "I'm sorry, but 'www.google.com' is not available as part of your current access package. You must upgrade to our Premium Package to access that site."
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Re:Umm... (Score:3, Interesting)
Sadly this is just another example of some companies trying to nickel and dime people to death in order to maximize revenue at all costs.
Don't get me wrong, I am a major fan of free markets and capitalism... something we really don't have in this area in la
Re:Umm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Really, I don't view the cableco's ideas as being far off from "Hey Google... accidents happen... packets get lost... connections get unexpectedly closed... it'd be a shame for something to happen to your traffic..."
Parent
Re:Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
This statement shows a fundamental lack of understanding of capitalism. Capitalism is not "laissez-faire", capitalism collapses into cartels and monopolies in a laissez-faire environment. Capitalism only works when the transactions are fair, that's why you have government regulations, some things are more costly to the public than their worth (polution) and hence should also be restricted. Furthermore in situations of a power inequity between the two parties involved in the transaction (say: on life-criticial services like electricity, water, heating gas) the stronger party [the seller in these cases] can force unfair terms upon the customer - yet another situation in which the government must step in to ensure a fair transaction.
If you do not ensure fair transactions capitalism does not function. Adam Smith, father of capitalism, recognized this himself.
Municipal/regional monopolies on infrastructure services (gas, power, data, water) are not necessarily bad- however how they are managed here is terribly bad - they get away with screwing over the customer left and right because they greasy the palms of corrupt politicians of all stripes.
Parent
Re:Umm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you have any evidence for this? You realize that the theory is that cartels collapse and free markets don't sustain monopoly prices (monopolies per se are not bad; it is monopoly pricing that is not bad). If you're going to come up with something that goes against the theory, you need strong evidence.
Re:Umm... (Score:3, Informative)
Most of the world is using the DVB standard for their digital cable and HD, which is an open standard with standard hardware - facilitates full usage of your signal on
Re:Umm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say you own an oasis in the middle of the desert. If you charge a million bucks for a glas of water, that isn't a fair transaction, even though buying a glass at that price would still be beneficial to someone who's about to die of thirst. A fair price would be whatever you could charge if the thirsty stranger had other options of quenching his thirst (and you had more thirsty strangers to sell to). But that is hard to determine, so usually cost plus some reasonable surcharge for your effort would be seen as a fair price.
Parent
Re:Umm... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Umm... (Score:3)
Say, how did the Unfettered capitalism thing work out in the 1920's in the US?
Re:Umm... (Score:4, Insightful)
This hinges on the assumption that the barriers to entry are low enough for new competitors to enter the market *and survive long enough to become profitable*.
That assumption (and it is a best-case assumption) is, at best, shaky.
The worst-case assumption is even worse - that a new competitor can enter the market and survive, even when the established companies are both wearing temporary losses undercutting it on price *and* (where applicable) using their existing relationships with suppliers to restrict the supply of raw materials. To say a new provider in the market could survive in such a scenario in any less than extraordinary circumstances is delusional.
I just don't believe this to be the case. As Murray Rothbard said, "The very term "public utility" is an absurd one. Every good is useful "to the public," and almost every good may be considered "necessary."
I can't agree. Some "utilities" are *clearly* more "essential" than others. Water, electricity, (basic) communications (eg: to emergency services), sanitation, police protection, fire protection, basic medical care, etc. I have never heard any argument against these as "essential services" that isn't venturing well and truly into absurd libertarian/anarchistic/rich white men fantasies.
This is not to say that every single aspect of such services need be government owned and controlled. For example, power distribution and power generation are two clearly separate aspects of "electricity", but the latter is trivially compatible with a "free market", whereas the former is not. Thus, IMHO, power *distribution* should be government owned and controller, while power *generation* should be privatised. This gives the maximum benefit to everyone - generation companies can market themselves to consumers as being cheap/green/clean/whatever, allowing the consumer to decide where their money should go (and trivially switch between them), but no company is endowed with the natural monopoly that results from owning such a massive piece of infrastructure as electricity grids.
Similarly, new competitors into the market are not faced with the effectively insurmountable barrier to entry of having to a) establish a widespread backbone grid, b) convince people to switch to their grid and c) connect to their houses. On the consumer side, they are not faced with having to run multiple physical power links onto their property and suffer power outages when any transfers are made.
While it is true to say "every good is useful to the public" (I would argue it should be "every good is useful to *someone*"), it does *not* follow that "every good is essential to the public (ie: *everyone*)" or "no goods are essential to the public".
Any designation of a few industries as "public utilities" is completely arbitrary and unjustified."
Of course it is arbitrary, but to say it is unjustified is ludicrous. You cannot, for example, sustain functional high-density urban living without proper sanitation and clean water. Both of these services require massive levels of infrastructure which is extremely invasive (and expensive) for any potential competitors to duplicate, and consumers to choose between. Fire protection is another example of a service that is essential to high-density population.
I contend that having the Government own (and maintain) this infrastructure, charging fees to all who use it, is more efficient than having the Government apply (potentially discriminatory) regulation to make access to privately-owned equivalents "fair" or having that infrastructure duplicated multiple times.
(However, one thing I am completely opposed to is collaboration between the public and private sector, especially on large
Parent
Re:Umm... (Score:4, Interesting)
The incumbents are only universally available because the government mandated that Ma Bell serve every single house out in the middle of nowhere. Without government regulation, the most remote 10-20% of the public probably wouldn't be served at all, and probably half of the remainder would end up in a natural monopoly because the market can't sustain more than one player.
Outside of major metro areas, the cost of running the lines never pays for itself. For example, in my hometown of 8500 people, when the cable company's limited monopoly came up for review, a second cable company came in and challenged the previous company. Both were regional entities. The town agreed to let them both duke it out in the free market.
The new cable company came in, put in brand new lines for the entire city, competed on price, and got almost a third of the town to switch. After two or three years, they realized they were still millions of dollars in the hole and weren't likely to break even in any reasonable time frame. They sold their lines to the original incumbent cable company. Thus, effectively, all competition did for us was to upgrade the cable company's lines for pennies on the dollar... but to make up for their losses, as soon as the second company went away, the original company's prices skyrocketed to half again more than they were before the second company came in.
Free markets don't work except for physical products (or location-indifferent services) that can be distributed broadly enough to make competition practical. For example, satellite cable service works because it is not tied to a geographical location, so a single infrastructure cost covers the entire country. Occasionally, they work for location-tied services, but for the most part, those collapse into a monopoly... and while not all monopolies are abusive, most eventually become abusive unless they are a not-for-profit entity (and occasionally even then).
Parent
Peering Agreements (Score:3, Insightful)
And this is why ISPs have peering agreements with each other: so that they don't have to pay each other for all the traffic going between them. If these cable companies think peering is wrong, all the other ISPs they connect to should stop peering with them (and/or stop giving them the benefits of peering (lower prices) in the case of upstream ISPs), and then see how they li
Re:Umm... (Score:5, Interesting)
Surely Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc can identify trafic originating from that ISP via IP addresses. When anyone trys to access your page from one of those ISP, redirect them to a page explaining that the ISP is holding back bandwidth to this site so your expierence may be slower than it should be. Then provide information about competing ISPs in the area which don't do this as well as contact information to the ISP to complain. Then after 5 seconds or something you are redirected to the actual page.
Yes, this will probably annoy users but I think that annoyance will mostly be focused toward the ISP. Then the market can sort out if its worth it to implement this.
Parent
Re:Umm... (Score:4, Interesting)
Using the end user's ISP named and N being the average from that ISPs throttling. Include a link to a page explaining what the ISP is actually doing - slowing down the users connection to try to make someone else pay them money. In other words the users service was reduced intentionally (without notifying them). Just use simple words because most users don't have a clue about computers.
Parent
Re:Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
This may or may not be true, but personally, I think this may all stem from AT&T being pissed that Google does not buy bandwidth from them.
Parent
Re:Umm... (Score:4, Interesting)
Cable companies now are simply jumping on the bandwagon. Which, if you notice, seems to coincide with the rollout of their own VoIP services.
Last December I founded a small-business VoIP [brightideavoip.com] company myself. So I've been following this issue very closely; it's the only time I've ever contacted a federal representative in my life. However, this is bigger than simply a slower Google or putting me out of business. It's about real jobs and real innovation being extinguished.
Please read a recent blog entry [dailykos.com] of mine to put a face with this imporant issue. Or, even better learn what you can do to help [savetheinternet.com].
Parent
Because it's ours (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the citizens paid for the telecom infrastructure.
Re:Because it's ours (Score:5, Insightful)
Telecom companies are having a tougher time making their shareholders happy. The Telcos haven't found a way to increase profits at the same pace that internet companies have done, yet these same companies are profiting off of the delivery path maintained by said telcos. (AKA: Chokepoint) Every telco executive is going to latch on to this as a way to make thier company more profitable, and won't stop until some legal force smacks them down.
Begin Outlandish Analogy
End Outlandish Analogy
Make no mistake, the only way to prevent a tiered internet from forming in this market driven economy is through state / federal intervention. The telcos are collectively "losing" money, and not a single one of them is going to be against a tiered internet strategy. Their stockholders demand it. So unless Google teams up with other powerful websites, Uncle Sam is the only one who's going to stop this from happening.
Parent
About that oil company analogy (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Because it's ours (Score:3, Funny)
Also, exploration for oil is also very costly. I am not so sure that you drill a bore hole and see 1s and 0s gushing out and screem 'we have internet'
Singing two tunes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Singing two tunes (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
MOD PARENT UP! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Packaging services (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's suppose I order a cool Rubik Cube from eBay and they send it to me thru UPS.
Me = Client
ebay = Server
Rubik cube = data packet
Highway = Internet lines.
Of course, I'm asked for the money to pay the shipping and handling, right?
Right.
So why TF should ebay (or actually the original owner) have to pay for shipping and handling, TOO?
Re:Packaging services (Score:3, Informative)
Bad Analogy (Score:5, Funny)
While the government doesn't really say what exactly to charge for gas, they do insist that prices are at least fair [cnn.com], just as net access should be. Besides, didn't the federal government give huge amounts to cable companies when they pledged to "build fiber optic to the home" back in the nineties? Or was that the telcos? I didn't get a reference to that, but I remember reading about it.
Is it just me, or does the title 'CEO' these days somehow imply criminal in addition to stupid?
Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course. And making the investment means you own the results. If the public wanted a say in the Internet, then they should have come up with the investment money to make it possible, instead of leaving it to the private sector.
Oh, wait.
Re:Heh (Score:4, Insightful)
We live in a political era where you have to show you are electable. "Electable" means being willin to say anything to win, and to say it in a way that shows no twinge of self-consciousness, much less shame. Politicians that show any kind of discomfort when lying and posturing are considered "stiff".
In other words if you don't show sufficient hypocrisy, you aren't considered credible.
We don't want visionaries, we want politicians who talk about how they have a vision. Actual vision is a sure route to ridicule. Mike Royko labelled Jerry Brown "Governor Moonbeam" because given California's size and propensity for natural disasers, Brown thought the state should have its own emergency communication satellite. In 1978 the idea was visionary, which in political terms equals "kook". Twenty years later it was reality.
Al Gore saw the potential of allowing the Internet to become a piece of national infrastructure for commerce, not just some obscure academic/military network. That took vision. Therefore, it's sure proof that politically speaking he's a kook.
No we don't want actual visionaries in office, any more than we want actual conservatives or actual religious people or actual war heroes. Content distracts the label on the box. No, what we want politicians who are resolute in their rhetoric but biddable to the will of their masters.
Parent
Of lines and government easements.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm waiting (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't wait for it, let them know beforehand.
Tell them *WHY* you think that double-dipping is wrong.
Bad analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
-Kurt
Time to get tough (Score:3, Interesting)
The remarks indicated it's not only the nation's largest broadband players, both in the cable and the telecommunications sectors, that have voiced public opposition to what they refer to as unprecedented governmental regulation of the Internet. They've said repeatedly that without evidence of a problem, there's no need for new laws.
Net neutrality, also called network neutrality, is the philosophy that network operators should not be allowed to prioritize content and services--particularly video--that come across their pipes. Proponents have launched a campaign to enact detailed regulations barring such practices, and so far they've won over some congressional Democrats.
Network operators counter that they deserve the right to charge premium fees to bandwidth hogs in order to offset their vast investments in infrastructure and to ensure the quality and security of their products. Mediacom has made $1.7 billion in capital investments over the past decade, according to Commisso.
And so I return to my premise that it's time to nationalize the communications infrastructure in this country. Declare it an important national resource, vital to the safety and security of US citizens, and then take it away from these greedy pinheads. Create a department to oversee telecommunications infrastructure and force these companies to bid on maintenance contracts for the various regions of the country.
True, that means goverment oversight, and the government is an iffy proposition at best, but it's a damned sight better than allowing the telecoms to run amok and ramp up the prices for content we as customers want. In the end, they'd do well to listen to customers, before they don't have any.
Why the public has the right to net neutrality (Score:4, Insightful)
Federal law protects common carriers. In exchange for that legal protection, the public has every right to require "net neutrality." If the communications companies want to run their networks their own way, then they must give up all the legal protections they currently enjoy. They must become directly and fully responsible for the content of every message sent accross their networks. The RIAA is drooling.
Oil companies (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's See How Far They Get (Score:3, Interesting)
Aside from the end users getting the raw deal (as usual), I think it would be hilarious for these money-grabbing bastards to get a harsh lesson in just how dependant they are on these sites. Case in point: I personally do not know anyone, not one single person, that doesn't use one or more of Google's services in some way on a regular basis.
Not trying to say everyone does of course, but the amount of people that do is large enough that any ISP that attempts to mess with them like this faces a giant backlash and loss of business as I can't see Google giving in to this extortion.
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who actually implements anything other than net neutrality is shooting themselves in the foot.
No Net Neutrality = No Cable Franchise For You (Score:4, Informative)
If they won't address the issue then you should press your local officials to reject their application.
If the local cable application goes away then we need to make Net Neutrality part of the discussion when state or national franchise applications take place.
If your town disagrees with a company's business practice then you shouldn't do business with them.
I'm pushing these issues locally. You can see how at: http://www.redbanktv.org/ [redbanktv.org]
Customers as a product. (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, they want to sell the bandwidth that their customers already pay for twice, once to the customer and one to the sites that the customer visits.
They want to sell you as a "product" to vendors, and they want you to pay for the privilige of being sold.
Don't we already have tiered service? (Score:5, Insightful)
Consumers are already paying for some level of bandwidth on their end.
Bandwidth purchasers should be able to use what they are paying for - period.
If the pipeline owners are not making enough money because people are using what they are paying for, then they need to raise their prices.
I don't have a problem with different tiers of service offerings. I have this already at home - there are two or three levels of speed I could pay my ISP for. I imagine Google has similar options.
The inconsistency here is that the pipeline owners charge for tiers of service, but they don't guarantee any level of service - it's "best effort". If they want to start charging for specific levels of service and holding people's feet to the fire, then it better go both ways. If I'm paying for the "gold" level of service I better get it.
Steve
What they seem to forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parents will start suing because little Johnny was looking at porn, terrorist victims will be suing because al-qaeda used the network, joe six-pack will sue because he got screwed on the time machine he bought on ebay, Grandma Johnson will sue because she sent all her money to Nigeria.
People do a lot of stupid stuff on the Internet. Giving up Common Carrier status could very well result in ISP's losing immunity for third party content and open Pandora's Box.
Re:Simple solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to be a troll, just Devils Advocate. What do you think would happen if Cox "blocked" Google. Do you think the vast majority of Cox users would care enough to switch ? Do you think they have the ability to switch ?
To me this is scarier than any MS monolopy. With MS I have alternatives. I have no other choice for highspeed other than RoadRunner. I cannot get DSL, and have only one provider. What happens tomorrow if they decide to throttle back Gmail, and throttle up Hotmail ??
This is something that needs more press.
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