ISPs Race to Create Two-Tiered Internet 612
An anonymous reader writes "The ISP race toward a two-tiered Internet is picking up speed. This
article from Michael Geist
points to a wide range of examples involving packet preferencing,
content blocking, traffic shaping, and public musings about premium
charges for faster content downloads. ISPs are now reducing
access to peer-to-peer applications, blocking Skype, and, scariest of
all, lobbying Congress to let them do it."
Go time (Score:5, Interesting)
Favoring content delivery over customer participation, the original concept for the "information super highway" was basically a one way street from the providers to the customers with the consumers having very little control. The Internet is not what he and the corps envisioned and they are pissed that they can't generate decent income streams from it (at least the majority of corps the innovators like google are able to but being an innovator is to hard for most corps).
As for liability the isps had better think about this real hard before they leap into content control, I'm sure the lawyers are licking their chops as the possibility for massive waves of lawsuits dance in their heads. From the article
"The network neutrality principle has served ISPs, Internet companies, and Internet users well. It has enabled ISPs to plausibly argue that they function much like common carriers and that they should therefore be exempt from liability for the content that passes through their systems. "
let's just disconnect them (Score:3, Interesting)
Circumventing ISP filtering (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Two word solution! (Score:2, Interesting)
My cell phone provider is competitive BECAUSE of competition. Your provider is trying tooth and nail to hold onto the regulations that let them gouge your downloads.
Oh, and my Samsung t809 cell phone uses MP3s for ring tones. I don't pay $1-$2 for ringtones, why do you?
I think it's fantastic in a way (Score:5, Interesting)
I think this plan will backfire on ISP's. They presently do not filter content, so they are held excempt from liability of the content. Plenty of court cases have backed that.
However if they are filtering content, controlling what an end user can and cannot access, then won't the courts hold them accountable for this behaviour?
This will be a splippery slope, one where a few ISPs will get burned from it.
Two Tiers? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course access to your mailbox is faster if its your ISP. But if MSN starts slowing down Gmail, Google limits it Wireless (and more to come) *SP routes to Hotmail customers will ask, "do you limit my bandwith".
Customers rule to a creatin level and hey.....
We speak about America.
They researched the internet but it is not a reason to think some stupid bill will change the world. Just go to an canadian ISP (or server farm) than. Or Mexico. There are countrys with no cable internet at all.
Re:Vote with your money (Score:3, Interesting)
But they generally can't just spring it on you:
It's like cellular phone contracts, I signed mine a long time ago and have a very good rate, which DOESN'T include lots of the new service fees.
However, if I ever want to change my phone for a newer model, my contract will not be renewable.
I found this out the other day.
When the salesman asked "so what model do you want?", I replied, "never mind - I'll go to your competitor and see if they have a better deal or I'll cancel my service if they don't"
Granted, most people will groan a little and bite the bullet, but I feel we have more options today, and the only way to ensure that is by either boycotting, cancelling or changing providers.
hmmm... why lobby congress? (Score:3, Interesting)
If I sign up for a service because it advertises that it allows anything I want to do, and the next day I find them blocking or choking services that I use, I'm going to be pissed -- and not want to be tied to a service contract.
That's really the only danger I see.
Its time to return the favour (Score:2, Interesting)
I would propose making normally free web services (services similar to Slashdot, Reddit, Digg, etc) unavailable to customers who connect to the Internet through these ISPs (SBC / Comcast, etc), or available only as a payed-for subscription service.
This may cause customers who value these services to switch to more reasonable internet providers, thus ensuring a steady supply of business for them.
Given the size of the organisations who intend to balkanise the Internet, fighting them head on would be difficult. Perhaps the best way to handle in this situation is to ensure that our side has a say in how this is done.
- Brittix
Re:Two word solution! (Score:4, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Two word solution! (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually remember it. There was a certain degree of predictability that we don't have anymore. They owned the whole system, from the lond distance system to the CO to the jack in your living room, so any trouble was definitely their problem and indeed they fixed things quickly. But there was a dark side. To make a bastardized reference to the Ben Franklin quote, the AT&T monopoly essentially guaranteed safety at the price of freedom. Local residential service was very cheap because it was subsidized by long distance. The old days were a time when you didn't talk to out of state relatives but a couple times a year, and then for not very long. And forget calling overseas. The only people who could afford to regularly use long distance were businesses, and they only did when they had to. Starting in the 50's and exploding in the 60's and 70's, the old AT&T service pricing more and more reflected a country that no longer existed. We were no longer a country of insular agrarian communities with no need or desire for outside communication. People no longer lived worked and died in the same place they were born. They moved around, sometimes going great distances. Also, TV came along and brought the outside world closer. By the late 70's, AT&T was a company with the most advanced 20th century equipment, but with a largely 19th century business model. MCI suing for access was just the inevitable first step in the explosion of the "information age". Widespread, global communication had reached a point where it was not only possible, but it was easy (at least from a technical standpoint). The problem was that the next step, communication becoming inexpensive, was thoroughly and completely blocked by a behemoth monopoly that had no reason to change its way of doing business. You think Ma Bell would have rolled out DSL for cheap? I remember even back in 1995 Pacific Bell was reluctant to field DSL because it was afraid to lose all that revenue from locked-in T1 and ISDN customers. Large incumbent monopolies are famous for not exploiting emerging markets until competitors force them into it. No, the AT&T monopoly was tolerable for the first 80 years or so, but by 1984 it's time had definitely passed.
Re:Give in. We're screwed. (Score:2, Interesting)
It's REAL easy to sign up, almost impossible to cancel without cancelling your credit card.. I know several people who had to do this.. and they have an indemnification clause that says if you want to sue AOL, you're paying for their lawyers..
Friends don't let friends use AOL.
Re:Two word solution! (Score:2, Interesting)
Never buy cell phone cables from the carrier. Try online, especially ebay. The last two times I bought phones, instead of getting $20-$30 cables from Verizon, I ordered multiple cables (backups, one for travel, car, etc.) for a few bucks each. I think the only thing you might want to keep official is a battery replacement - I heard that cheapo batteries can explode.
The Two-Tiered Internet, Regulation, and Freedom (Score:2, Interesting)
However, there should be strict protection of the right for competition for the providers who supply the materials for those monopolies or the services transported over them.
One Phone line provider is good, one phone service provider is not, and One ISP is not. Anytime you prevent competition among content providers of any medium you limit innovation, inflate cost, and allow abuses of power.
A Ma-Bell providing lines to everyone and maintaining them isn't a bad thing if they have only the providers as clients. Having Bellsouth, or MCI, or who ever hire the ma-bell line men to work on your lines and make sure they work can, and does work. There is a comparable example in some of the natural gas deregulation markets. However, the SNL bit about the phone company is true only if you must use them for service.
Anyway, that's my $2.00's (regulated inflation of my usual $0.02)
No what really will happen (Score:3, Interesting)
So maybe you wonder about larger lines, just do it on the OC lines that the ISPs hook up to. Nope, all that's under contract. When you get a large line it's not like getting a DSL connection, there's two way negoation and a binding contract. They'll provide the service, as specified, or face a lawsuit. Again, if they refuse to provide unrestricted service in the future, there will be someone who will. When we last redid out net contract on campus we had about 10 people bidding on the contract. Even if half of them go down the "we'll filter you route" that's plenty that won't.
My bet is this whole thing is pretty short lived. As the ISPs that filter start to take it in the shorts from those that don't, the'll quickly figure it out, that or simply die form lack of subscribers.
Some ISPs already do this. (Score:3, Interesting)
Aside from that, we basically got no signal between 4pm and 10pm anyway, so we canned that stupid idea and went with SBC, which only offers their lowest tier of service where we live.
Cute little independent podunk ISPs are probably doing the types of things mentioned in TFA, and will continue to do them... because they don't appear to be regulated.
Re:Go time (Score:2, Interesting)
If the market doesn't like "multi-tiered" traffic, well, it'll just be too bad.
Re:Two word solution! (Score:5, Interesting)
If you think living in a trailer is trashy, I applaud you -- it is why I can continue to live in housing that costs me less than US$3000 per year (including property taxes) and pocket the US$2000 a month in mortgage to spend on other things I like.
In the next 3 years I'll move at least 60 people with similar lives as mine into my community -- and we'll all live high on the hog getting rid of the 38% overhead of living in a "house." In fact, I've been able to cut my work hours almost in HALF and have more money in my pocket at year's end.
Don't knock it just because you want to keep up with the Joneses. The Joneses are in debt and live beyond their means and will have to both work until they're 65 to pay off their excesses. Me? My family loves life and has smiles on our face when we go shopping with cash in our pocket. It seems like everyone else we see has a frown and wonders if that plastic card will say "denied" at the register.
Re:Two word solution! (Score:3, Interesting)
There will come a time soon than many families will find themselves heavily burdened by debt directly due to housing and the pay-it-down-and-refinance game. I fear that many geeks here will have the same future if they're not careful.
Wrong regulation, homefry (Score:1, Interesting)
Power regulation is all about regulating the delivery of power.
Communications regulation is about regulating the delivery of, well, communications.
If a power company suddenly starts spewing broadband over power lines, they won't magically be able to skirt whatever regulation affects other ISP's just because they're a power company. They would then become an ISP just like the rest (albeit with a different mode of delivery than your local cable company) and would be subject to the rules affecting the service they are providing.
Re:Two word solution! (Score:2, Interesting)
For example, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Long John Silver's, KFC, and A&W are all owned by one company.
There are only a handful of candy bar companies. Very few are not owned by Nestle, M&M Mars, or General Mills.
We don't see a whole lot of new, independent chocolate bars in this country.
Others have already covered the fact that these industries are a whole lot easer to break into than communications inferastructure.
That's because Wal-Mart sells garbage. (Score:3, Interesting)
You also get the added benefit of the fact that Wal-Mart sells garbage. Have you noticed the rapid decline in the quality of goods? I have. I wanted to buy my niece a stereo system last year. I went to Wal-Mart and inspected what they have. The systems were inexpensive but also incredibly inferior in quality to what I had when I was her age.
Go to any Wal-Mart electronics section: put your finger on any knob on any stereo, and wiggle your finger. The knob wiggles too, doesn't it? That's because the garbage in Wal-Mart has had so much cost removed from it that they have also removed the quality! The crap they sell will fall apart from normal use in a few short months
Back before the rapid infection of Wal-Mart I could find a small electronics store in any city I was in. Those stores sold stereo equipment at a higher price than Wal-Mart, but it lasted for years!. And now they are gone.
Well, you argue, so what? Target and Best Buy have replaced those smaller stores.
I would have to agree with you. But we have still lost those smaller stores, and the stereo equipment in Best Buy and Circuit City is just as cheap and inferior as the crap in Wal-Mart.
End result: we the consumer lose.
As for Video rentals: I don't know where you live, but I have seen a steady decline in the number of independant video rental stores since the early 1990s. The smaller stores that survive are all part of smaller chains than Blockbuster, but they are still chains. In fact, the only independant in my city just closed a few weeks ago, leaving us with only Blockbuster.
I am reminded,,, (Score:3, Interesting)
The internet offers an opportunity for information exchange beyond what could have ever been conceived even 10 or 20 yrs ago. I can talk to friends a few states or even half the world away and the communication is nearly instantaneous. Not only that, but this new form of communication travels with me. A truly wireless world where each person with their laptop, pda or cell phone can instantly be online talking to their best friends. However, there are some people standing in the way of this great digital, free internet revolution.
Are the people standing in the way the US Government or our elected officials? No, they are just the pawns of bigger more interested individuals who are not ready for the new order of things. Large corporations sit on vast supplies of money and they are dependent on archaic communication methods to maintain their precious power. Who are these huge conglomerates? The telecos who already lose a great deal of money to VoiP, Instant Messaging and e-mail. They tried to offset this some with cell phones, but that only appears to take them so far. The huge cable companies. These people have built an industry out of nothing. There was a time (believe it or not) when you had three networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) and that was it. Now we have thousands of channels delivered by huges companies like Time-Warner and Comcast.
Of course these people have the most to lose, but so do large media groups. Some of these groups are the same people bringing you cable, but others exist as well. They all have a lot to lose.
This new technology threatens their livelyhood and the livelyhood of a great many people. I liken the matter to an idea I had once. Consider matter transportation like we see on Star Trek. How many people would oppose such a great new technology? Well, you have the entire transportation industry who would lose countless passengers on their airlines, trains and buses. What about car manufacturers? Would you really need a car anymore to get to point B if you could arrive in a few seconds? Shipping companies? You would be able to order from Amazon and have the item magically appear next to you a few moments later.
The problem is the power and the money lies with people who do not want change. They are the ones who currently have our money and who continue to get it, so why should they want to change anything. They use lies and "studies" to convince these gullable politicians they need new laws to protect the consumer, or some other BS argument that is meant to sounds friendly. In reality, they are only trying to protect their own pockets and sadly it seems the people we vote into office are stupid enough to listen. I had a history professor tell me once, "Most Americans are just stupid." I guess that explains why people elect the people they do (i.e. George W. Bush).
Everyone appears to be missing something (Score:3, Interesting)
Case in point.
Let's say that a Verizon broadband customer buys service for a new Verizon VOIP product.
Let's say that this same customer has a friend across the country, that is also a Verizon customer.
They both get the new product, and one decides to call the other.
In todays market, that call will go from one end of the country to the other, with no impediment to it's packets (at least none that isn't applied to all traffic going through a certain subnet).
In the proposed market, let's say that to get from point A to point B, this traffic has to cross subnets owned by Sprint and Qwest.
Both Sprint and Qwest will throttle back the data as it's originated at, and destined for a foreign network.
Even though both customers are on Verizon's network, they get CRAP service due to the way the internet works.
Now, even though both customers paid Verizon for high speed VOIP service, Verizon couldn't deliver the goods because the user didn't pay Sprint and Qwest for that same service. Verizon sure as hell isn't going to pay Qwest and Sprint to speed up these connections as that would minimize their profit margins, so the customer gets shittier service, for a higher cost.
All this idea is, is a way to allow ISPs to charge more, for less service.
My guess would be that they won't do anything but throw controls in that throttle foreign network traffic, or traffic that hasn't been paid for by the customer.
It will be the end of the Internet as we know it.
We're the laughingstock of the online world... (Score:2, Interesting)
What's especially disappointing is that ISP's don't seem to like people like me who want to run their own Web sites from home. My own connection only has 384 kB/s upload, which makes it almost impossible to run stuff like my Linux distribution that requires a great deal more bandwidth, particularly for FTP downloads. Not only that, but apparently their AUP doesn't allow for that type of thing, so I'm hoping I'm not caught... but anyway, the only alternative would be to pay someone lots of money to run it full-time, which is just as bad because I'd have to deal with their server configuration, their bandwidth limitations, their limited disk space... and not to mention paying thousands of dollars a year that I don't even have.
Please, somebody listen to the people for a change...
Brand X->Monopoly->Municipal WiFi->1984 (Score:3, Interesting)
Ahhhh, I see how it will happen now... First they get the Brand X decision from the Supreme Court. Consolidation starts until the resulting monopoly makes price/quality of the internet unbearable. Politicians step in to "save" us from the big evil monopoly with municipal internet plans. Once ubiquitous, anti-terror rhetoric used to consolidate control of municipal ISPs at the federal level. Big brother, 1984 style, begins "for the children."