Telcos Propose 2-Tier Internet 414
cshirky writes "Boston.com is reporting that 'AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp. are lobbying Capitol Hill for the right to create a two-tiered Internet, where the telecom carriers' own Internet services would be transmitted faster and more efficiently than those of their competitors.' The telcos basic fear, of course, is that the end to end design of the net (PDF version) will erode the telcos ability to use service charges to generate revenue for delivering video and voice; the proposed solution is to break end-to-end in order to protect pricing leverage over the users." We reported on this at the beginning of the month, when it was just speculation. Not any more.
what will happen to /. (Score:3, Interesting)
Dumb Network (Score:5, Interesting)
Not that that's ever stopped anyone from killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, of course...
Common Carrier Status (Score:5, Interesting)
This leads directly to fraud (hear me out) (Score:5, Interesting)
If for example, I get a T1 from Verizon (I would never buy from them directly, we're going with an alternate provider, but hear me out) and AT&T has a dispute with Verizon. Were this thing to pass, data transfers between my T-1 and a customer's T1 (who happens to be an AT&T provider) would be downgraded. This means that my customer is not getting the full 1.54mbps bandwidth their SLA guarantees, and by effect neither would I. This is {potentially} interference with interstate commerce and is also discriminatory in deciding whose traffic goes where, not to mention breach of contract (violating the SLA).
Implementing this kind of policy should immediately result in the provider's losing common carrier status, as by advertising one thing and then providing a different service, they are carrying out a bait-and-switch on the customer - in short, fraud.
Difference between this and Internet2? (Score:2, Interesting)
It seems to me that the major difference is that it's the telcos coming up with the idea and that end users may actually get to use it. While I'd prefer everyone get access to the higher speed network, what's stopping backbone providers from continuing to upgrade services as they have been?
This seems quite a bit different than previous stories about telcos offering priority on the regular internet to services that pay up. That would definitely be questionable. This is using a completely separate network that they own and charge access to - why shouldn't they be allowed to do this?
Isn't this what the cable companies already have? (Score:4, Interesting)
They have their own private internet for video services and a separate internet for normal IP traffic flow.
This allows them to send massive amounts of video with fairly reliable QOS.
Re:Why ask Congress? (Score:3, Interesting)
There just isn't the motivation of users for better service when many users can get 50K/s downloads over a $20 DSL or cable line. If they truly want to disrupt Internet connections to major endpoints and expect to blackmail or start some racketeering (with government approval), they'll find themselves losing users left and right.
The only way that U.S. Congress can facilitate a "total control takeover" would be to tax the smaller ISPs out of existance. Sure, this can happen, but I don't see 180 million users in the U.S. accepting a price increase -- even if it will help prevent terrorism or win the battle against the Communists or stop the Reich from spreading throughout Europe. There is no mandate from the market to break apart what works right now, and nothing government can do short of making themselves bigger tyrants will change that.
Re:This leads directly to fraud (hear me out) (Score:5, Interesting)
Heck, I'm switching to Verizon's mobile service because it doesn't make any sense to pay Cingular when virtually all of my contacts are on verizon, and would be free to call if I were a verizon customer.
It's probably racketeering, and definitely immoral, but it's a damn effective business strategy.
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:3, Interesting)
if you live in New York maybe, but living in central illinois, if I want landline phone service I have one choice SBC, if I want broadband I have one choice, InsightBB.
SBC to offer DSL but left the market because it was small.
The only telco service where I have had any choice is Cell phones. Most of the telcos have regional monopolies. Not national, but still pretty hard to deal with as a consumer.
Re:Why ask Congress? (Score:4, Interesting)
The Telcos have been the beneficiaries of large grants of land siezed or given to them by the government. The government taxes their customers and then hands that money to the Telcos to pay for capital improvements in less profitable geogephic markets. The Telcos benefit from government regulation that places enourmous barriers to entry for competitors attempting to enter their markets.
So yeah, the are subject to congressional oversight. If they don't like that they should'nt have gone to Congress in the first place for all the freebies and just conducted business in an open market.
It really hacks me off when whiney corps try to have it both ways.
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:2, Interesting)
6 Bullet points? How about 14? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.p hp/Fascism [democratic...ground.com]
Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:5, Interesting)
First, cell phones are wide spread, and the companies that control them aren't entirely under the thumb of Ma' Bell. Verizon and Cingular are closely related to Regional Bell operating companies, T-Mobile and Sprint are not. They'll limit any power that resurgent Ma' Bell could exercise.
Second, the cable tv industry is making strong moves into telephony. The VoIP bundles offered by the cable companies provide the second line of defense against Ma' Bell.
Third, municpal broadband would only become a stronger alternative in the face of a reassembled Ma' Bell. Municipal broadband, coupled with Skype, Vonage, or a dozen others will offer a third line of defense against Ma' Bell.
Fourth, new technologies like WiMax will provide additional communications options.
In 1984, Ma' Bell was a monopoly because not only did they completely control a particular service, but there was feasible substitute service available. Twenty-one years later there are several substitutes available and so the monopoly won't have near the market influence it once had. The attempts to reestablish Ma' Bell should be interpretted as a set of uncompetative companies merging in order to hopefully achieve economies of scale and become competative - not an attempt to reestablish an old monopoly.
My Ideal ISP (Score:2, Interesting)
My ideal ISP will not care what I have on my computer or transmit over their network.
My ideal ISP will not care if I run a server filled with pirated movies or software, because that's my problem.
My ideal ISP will provide me with symmetrical bandwidth in the tens of megabits per second.
My ideal ISP will never exist.
Re:This will never happen (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:4, Interesting)
Everybody loses except a few thousand majority shareholders, executives and politicians, yet these are the systems that are held up as paragons to emulate.
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:3, Interesting)
There is more of a debate here than people would like to admit unfortunately. These businesses are acting on issues other than their own self interest here - they employee millions, millions who without jobs could seriously harm the economy, and each member of the state as well. So the debate ends up, what do we do when technology/tech companies make whole business sectors(which really translates to lots of people) irrelevant(or at least hand them their hat)? The idea of emminent domain and the governments ability to override the rights of the individuals is what is at the base of this argument, and that idea is not based in capitalist ideals - but socialist ones. The companies are asking government to take choice away, but the government agrees on the basis that it will protect or help the people since the believe the existance of the companies have become important to the well being of the people/economy.
You misunderstand the issue. (Score:3, Interesting)
You misunderstand the issue.
This is not about creating a separate internet. This is about giving some packets priority over others in a single transport - and the regulated transport operator being able to assign their OWN packets to the higher priority - and to include others' packets for an extra fee, when contracted to do so.
No "second network" creation at all. Just first-class and coach-class packets. (Actually: Packets with confirmed reservations and packets "flying standby" or in "overbooked seating".)
This sounds unfair. But actually, it's an economic necessity to enable a technical necessity.
Normally, IP packets get best effort service. They're forwarded if there's bandwidth for them. But when there's a traffic jam packets are randomly picked to be dropped.
This works FINE when there's lots more transport available than packets to use it. And for things like file transfers and terminal sessions it's still OK when things get tight: The TCP layer sits on top of IP, detecting the lost packets, retrying them, and throttling back until traffic flows smoothly through the traffic jam. Your data gets through - but slowed down to fairly "share the road".
But for real-time things like real-time voice and video, retry takes too long, causing stops-and-starts, stuttering, echos, and a host of quality issues. (Even the delay necessary to insert slop to handle the hole-filling is a horrible problem in two-way communication.) Yet not retrying makes holes in the stream that have to be filled in by guess - and losing information when too many packets are dropped.
IP had hooks to let you flag packets for special handling when needed. (They're the Type of Service (ToS) bits - intended to indicate what aspects of scheduling are important to the packets, intended to be mapped into Quality of Service (QoS) - how the scheduling decisions are made.)
But protocol stacks have already cheated. (Notably Microsoft, which released an IP stack that improved its own performance by lying about the traffic's requirements - giving its packets priority over others that were more truthful.) With many cheaters deployed the ISPs and backbones just don't honor the ToS bits, or rewrite them at their own edges - to their own specs - when they do. (Thus, now that Microsoft wants to get into VoIP they find their past behavior hosed themselves. B-) And everybody else. B-( ) But even if ToS were honored and used honorably, there are no guarantees. So too many calls through a network node and they'd all deteriorate.
Telcos write service contracts that guarantee performance levels for their phone calls - or for customers (like radio and television networks) that require reliable transport. High probability of establishing a connection (for dynamic things like phone calls), still higher performance guarantees once one is established. If they want to turn the call into packets and ship it over a shared IP backbone while still meeting the guarantees, the VoIP / stream packets themselves must have guarantees higher than "best effort". In particular they require virtual certainty of delivery and tight control of transit time variations. That means they must have higher priority than the competing packets that are doing less time-critical stuff (such as file transfer). Fortunately, VoIP streams are low and essentially constant bandwidth, so they can just reserve a tiny fraction of the bandwidth for them. (Video streams are 'way bigger - but not as transient. So you can design in bandwidth for them.)
But if some packets are given priority over others, they have higher claim on system resources. They can bump other traffic. So it's appropriate to charge them extra for the privilege. (It's the same case as flying with a confirmed reservation vs. standby.) The bandwidth on the network l