Net Neutrality Debate Crosses the Atlantic 277
smallfries writes "The network neutrality debate has raged on in the States for some time now. Now broadband providers in the UK have banded together to threaten the BBC, who plans to provide programming over 'their' networks. The BBC is being asked to cough up to pay for bandwidth charges, otherwise traffic shaping will be used to limit access to the iPlayer. 'As more consumers access and post video content on the internet - using sites such as YouTube - the ability of ISPs to cope with the amount of data being sent across their networks is coming under increasing strain, even without TV broadcasters moving on to the web. Analysts believe that ISPs will be forced to place stringent caps on consumers' internet use and raise prices to curb usage. Attempts have been made by players in the industry to form a united front against the BBC by asking the Internet Service Providers' Association to lead the campaign on the iPlayer issue. However, to date, no single voice for the industry has emerged. I thought that the monthly fee we pay already was to cover access ... but maybe it only covers the final mile and they need to be paid twice to cover the rest of the journey."
universal encryption (Score:5, Interesting)
Encrypt every protocol. If it's a legacy protocol, pass it over an encrypted tunnel. Governments can't censor and corporations can't selectively extort when to them all bits are just bits.
Bandwidth is a commodity. Encrypt, and these people will have to treat it like one rather than abusing their monopoly/cartel positions to implement artificial restrictions and surcharges.
Monopolies (Score:4, Interesting)
This is monopolistic behaviour. From the Reg (talking to Lord Currie, chairman of OFCOM):
They'd better stop trying to strong-arm the BBC into paying for service, anyone who disagrees with these attacks on the free market should give OFCOM a ring [ofcom.org.uk]. I've contacted them before, aside from being very informative/helpful, the number of complaints has an effect on whether they think they should intervene (assuming the complaint is valid of course).
"Protection" money (Score:4, Interesting)
The BBC isn't trying to get anything for free here, they pay for their internet connection and their consumers pay for there's as well, the ISP shouldn't expect anything beyond that. Threatening to throttle traffic from a particular site unless the owners pay up amounts to nothing more than extortion and it's a shame that the greedy ISP owners who think differently won't get treated to the same punishment that Vinnie the Protection Racket Thug would get for the same crime.
Re:Internetz? (Score:3, Interesting)
In Australia we've always paid a lot for our internet in comparison to you lot, but by the same token there's always been a clear statement of how much bandwidth you're buying. Xgig costs $X a month... simple... use it for whatever you like, streaming video, porn, emails, whatever, you've paid for Xgig of bandwidth.
It's when it's the vague 'unlimited' claim that the ISPs get worried. You really should be moving towards plans where you pay for a certain amount of bandwidth, then everyone is happy.
Re:Jombeewoof, get off the Internet. (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes I guess I am a prick. I expect to receive the goods and or services for which I have and continue to pay for.
$75,000 worth of free education, with up to another $25K is not nearly enough to pay for such spectacular service.
15 times through both the Sun Solaris admin, and Cisco CCNP programs with 5 more yet to be named students is not enough to pay. I should certainly think of the poor ISP that doesn't make enough money. I should certainly think of their operating costs. I should certainly think that when I don't get what I pay for; the other guy must certainly be right.
FUCK YOU... that felt good. Let me say it again, FUCK YOU
For what it's worth, I'm no longer at that school. Poor business decisions caused it to go bankrupt.
Poor business decisions like trading seats for goods and or services with companies who expect to be able to renegotiate.
And I'm a jerk, for allowing my students access to the internet so they could do various research on the net. (that made up the majority of the extra bandwidth, could not have possibly been my addiction to the distro of the month club circa 2002), for allowing remote access for students, so they can access network shares from home, for creating labs that could both access and be accessed from anywhere on the web. I'm a prick for giving the students what they paid for and more without asking for more money from them (yes we did hike the prices a bit after, but we didn't go to current students and ask for more.)
Oh, anonymous coward. I guess you "got" me. Get me fired from a job I don't have anymore. Where I was underpaid, and certainly over appreciated. Next time though, why not post as yourself instead of hiding behind the mask of anonymity.
and if you want to get me fired from my current job... good luck.
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem here is that (surprise surprise) "unlimited" doesn't mean unlimited, because at the time these deals were created, the ISP customer base had certain usage patterns that meant that it was OK to offer "practically unlimited" service. Customer usage has changed, and people are downloading/streaming more video and now the figures don't stack up.
The BBC will be paying several times more for their bandwidth than an ADSL consumer is on a £20/month unlimited plan. The ISPs need to rethink their pricing in the light of video becoming popular.
Those who moan about how they should be able to download the entire internets every night for £20/month clearly don't understand what a contended service is. You can get uncontended (1:1 ratio) ADSL service for about £1000/month. Buy it and knock yourself out, but don't expect the same level of service for 1/50th of the cost.
The services may have been sold as "unlimited*", but the * was always there, and the service was always contended with certain usage restrictions.
Badgering the BBC etc for payments to support their business plans is cowardly though. The ISPs are feeling the pain of the overly competitive market they've created (with the help of Ofcom). The best thing that could happen now is that Ofcom mandate that all-inclusive plans are axed and replaced with per GB billing all round. I wouldn't have a problem with that because I pay already for my gas/petrol/electricity/baked-beans/socks that way.
Notes: Yes, I used to work for a UK ISP. Yes, I know what the running costs are. No, I'm not biased, just realistic. No I don't use P2P regularly, but if I did I'd expect to pay more for it, just the same as I pay more for everything else if I use more of it.
Re:Someone has to pay (Score:1, Interesting)
But note what you just said. "Why should I, or the content provider, have to pay extra to make the ISPs meet their end of the bargain?" Presumably, the answer is because if you don't give, there is no bargain.
And: "If they can't do the job at the prices they gave, it's their fault, not mine." Contracts get re-negotiated all the time. It is not unreasonable to renegotiate a contract when the term of the first contract is up. Of course, you, as a content provider or end-user, can play hardball. But competition among content providers and end-users is stiff, so you'll lose. The ISP's found a prisoner's dilemma and plan on exploiting it. Either get in touch with every content provider or end-iser you can and get enough power to effectively play ball, or settle now.
Re:Ugh... (Score:5, Interesting)
The BBC peer at 11 different peering exchanges across the UK, Europe and USA with two different AS Numbers - one for BBC European ops and one for BBC American Ops. Details are available at http://support.bbc.co.uk/support/peering/ [bbc.co.uk]
The upshot of this is that the ISPs are peering with the BBC so they don't get complaints from customers that one of the biggest sites in the world is slow or have to pay over the odds to an upstream provider and the BBC is peering with ISPs to make sure that they don't get hit with a bill for the 10s of Gbps of bandwidth they have available to them.
Now that the bandwidth is likely to increase and the ISPs aren't going to get any more money from anyone for this they want the BBC to stump up. Personally I say tough - you decided to peer with the BBC, now you get to carry their traffic. It must have seemed beneficial once, surely those benefits haven't dissipated completely.
Re:Ugh... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Ugh... (Score:3, Interesting)
Amen. BitTorrent is an absolutely brutal hack, and I really want it to die, but we just don't have decent multicast to replace it with.
Maybe what we need is a sort of hybrid between cacheablility and multicast. Right now, Polipo (and maybe Squid) does something close -- if I start downloading some huge file, and someone else on my network starts downloading the same file, they'll get the first bit served out of cache, and then the connection will be shared for the rest of it.
Maybe there's some HTTP tricks that could theoretically work, even. For example, you say you want a file, and you get back a header with a range of the current position of everybody downloading it through the end of the file. Then, when the download is done for everyone else, you start downloading from the beginning. Better than broadcasting on a schedule because if nobody's downloading a particular file, we don't have to broadcast it anywhere until the first person tries to -- and that first person can stream it.
Of course, another thing that would help is easy local discovery of peers, so if you come late, you could stream the first bit from a peer while the rest of it downloads...
(Am I making sense? It's 3 AM...)
Hardball (Score:5, Interesting)
I would look up the IP blocks which belong to whoever is threatening me.
I would then redirect any connection from those IP ranges to a page explaining what their ISP is trying to do, and have phone numbers available for each customer's ISP.
This might even work better for the BBC than for Google, because Google is an Internet business -- every customer they cut off is money lost. The BBC, however, does do traditional broadcasting, so they can afford to kill off some customers and make them turn on their old-fashioned cable TV.
Anyway: "Contracts get re-negotiated all the time..." Bullshit. This isn't a case of renegotiating a contract. It's a case of some ISPs trying to bully the BBC into creating a contract where none currently exists. If it was the BBC's own ISP that wanted to charge them more, then yes, that makes sense, and the BBC can then decide if they want to play, or if they want to find another ISP. But if it's some random ISP across the country, I'd say "Fuck you, you just lost your customers."
Who should pay who? (Score:3, Interesting)
It occurs to me that, if anything, the ISPs should be paying the BBC. They should cough up for the privilege of being able to provide BBC services to their customers, in the same way that Virgin were recently asked to pay for the privilege of being able to provide Sky channels to their customers. They wouldn't like the alternative: try explaining to your customers why they can't get the BBC website, while Mr Jones next door using a rival ISP can, and see how long they're still your customers.
Re:Ugh... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Ugh... (Score:3, Interesting)