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.
Time for another breakup? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:4, Insightful)
Telcos can try to create their own Internet, but how long would it last if users can't get to sites they've commonly accesses? Google and Slashdot and other popular sites can refuse to pay the telco premium charges, and the users will bail.
They should have tried this a decade ago. Too little, too late.
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:5, Insightful)
Telcos: "Waahhh, this is turning out to be too expensive! Please make the taxpayers pay for it instead of us!"
Congress: "Sure thing! Don't forget us during election time!"
On a related note, anybody wanna take a crack at defending capitalism anymore?
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:2, Insightful)
The key phrase, you used was: "Please make the taxpayers pay for it instead of us!". The fact that it's a company saying it does not make it any less socialistic.
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:4, Insightful)
I will.
Capitalism is providing no regulation or public funding for a market. Mercantilism is providing corporate welfare for favored company. Lincoln fought a war to protect his mercantilist dreams. Congress today runs the mercantilist ship, with the Executive branch profiting from the warfare state. You have Congress doling out corporate welfare with the Executive's warfare manipulations.
Don't confuse a free market with a regulated one. Capitalism is merely the process of billions of consumers and producers making unique trades that create common values that can change on a whim, but the entire process still runs. Mercantilism is stealing from the majority to support a minority that the majority didn't want to support at the price they were asking.
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:5, Insightful)
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate Bush as much as any decent human being, but you really need to expand the blame to include pretty much the entire post World War 2 US foreign policy.
Ike laid it out pretty clearly [msu.edu]
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
The problems with the weapons industry have long been clear. What you're seeing here is other industries trying to expand their membership in the club.
Socialized costs and privatized profits are a very real problem, no matter the industry.
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 ne
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:5, Insightful)
During the last twenty years, they've individually frozen out as much competition as they could, in a forward-guard holding action. And the last two decades have seen the installation of a lot of judges whose philosophies are decidedly pro-business with a jaundiced eye for monopoly regulation, as well as a large number of legislators and at least two Presidents, even three as Clinton wasn't exactly a flaming socialist, turning a blind eye and a curious lack of oversight as the Baby Bells merged together again.
Right now, the Justice Department has found itself stripped of monies to enforce antitrust law for the last five years. No money for investigations, no investigators. It's like repealing antitrust legislation without the messy bother of repealing the laws. (Ditto environmental laws, pollution, meat inspection, etc. ad nauseum).
So the last ones standing are AT&T and SBC. And they will merge very soon, so here we are again, with one monopoly dictating terms. And even if somehow a new set of enforcers come in after the next election, they will find a hostile Congress and court system slowing them down. Even in ideal circumstances, as we found with the original AT&T breakup and the Microsoft conviction, it takes ten years to get to the point of enforcing antitrust laws under a judge's supervision, and a lot can happen in ten years. A new Republican president can be elected, and the case dies. New technology can obsolete AT&T entirely in ten years -- if they let it happen (look at Philadephia and Pennsylvania trying to install municipal WiFi).
Every decade, the corporate powers grow stronger, more integrated with the government and the courts. The ability to enforce antitrust laws is decreasing hyperbolically with each era.
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:2)
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:5, Informative)
It already happened on November 21st of this year.
http://www.schwabpt.com/downloads/support/T_SBC_21 Nov05v3.pdf [schwabpt.com]
"Important Information about the new AT&T Inc. The AT&T Corp. ("AT&T") and SBC Communications Inc. ("SBC") merger completed effective November 21, 2005. The newly formed company is known as AT&T Inc. Initially AT&T shares will be exchanged for SBC shares under the 'SBC' ticker symbol. On December 1st, 2005, the newly formed company will take back the symbol 'T'"
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:3, Insightful)
Only if they own their own cable... if their voice/data traffic has to travel via any wire owned by "Ma'Bell", as you put it, then they can be choked out by price rises and/or low prioritisation.
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:3, Informative)
Amoung the many things wrong with your post: AT&T was not one of the "last ones standing". AT&T was an empty shell, and was bought by SBC just for the name. TFA talks about "AT&T and BellSouth". BellSouth is not SBC. AT&T is SBC's new name, but isn't the old AT&T. The old AT&T is history.
The breakup of Ma Bell did nothing to offer any consumer more than one choice for local service. It was only about long distance, and the plan work
Or require they provide competitors access (Score:2)
Re:Time for another breakup? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's it! (Score:5, Funny)
I've got a spare linksys and two pringles cans; who's with me?
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:Time for another breakup? (Score:3, Informative)
Does this fall... (Score:5, Insightful)
Common Carrier? (Score:5, Insightful)
No (Score:2, Informative)
Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
Will anyone actually go for this?
Seriously, what ever happened to running a business on the merits of its product, not on cash generated by hidden surcharges?
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Funny)
You must be new to the real world where enough lobbying and campaign contributions can buy just about anything.
Re:Wait... (Score:2)
The real money is in controlling the bottleneck. (Score:2)
If you want to make money, you have to find or make a bottleneck for a desired product/service.
Then you make big bucks off of the bottleneck.
All they're doing right here is trying to build a bottleneck where one doesn't exist today. Whether they succeed or not is another question.
Re:Wait... (Score:2)
They will claim they are providing a "new" service for video to help promote technology yad yada
what will happen to /. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:what will happen to /. (Score:2)
if they have permission to do what they are asking, they won't do it to benefit the consumer. they will do it to destroy competition and punish the consumer.
Re:what will happen to /. (Score:3, Insightful)
Dumb Network (Score:5, Interesting)
Not that that's ever stopped anyone from killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, of course...
Re:Dumb Network (Score:2)
That will only encourage them.
Their problem is the fact that the internet *is* successful. Reminding them of that fact won't discourage them in the least.
AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp (Score:3, Funny)
Ma' Bell strikes back!
Re:AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp (Score:2)
And after they got rid of the Death Star logo, too...
Re:AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp (Score:2)
It may be fashionable to consider them The Next Evil Empire (on
Why ask Congress? (Score:5, Insightful)
If companies want to try to create supernets for their customers to better access each other, I say allow them to. I can not imagine any supernet subverting the Internet in any way. If an ISP decides to slow down traffic to non-ISP destinations, you're going to see user backlash. I've changed ISPs over the years due to bad routing (or repeatedly failed routing) and I know some of my non-techie friends have done the same.
These supernets would just be a second backbone connecting their network together, correct? I think this is a great idea, especially for corporations that can not afford their own backbone connections for remote offices. If my companies could connect quickly through a secondary network at no additional cost (or lower cost), I'd jump on it immediately.
I just can't understand why Congress has any say in what companies do with their own property. They're already providing for the "public need" and they should be free to supplement the "public need" for what other users are demanding/needing.
Re:Why ask Congress? (Score:3, Insightful)
You can bet it would cost more -- whether in terms of actual operating expenses for your company, or in terms of less valuable service provided to your company.
Re:Why ask Congress? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why ask Congress? (Score:3, Informative)
It isn't about them trying to create a supernet, it's about them breaking the current 'Net and inserting them selves between the end points. then they can prioritize traffic based on who coughs up the most money to them. No $$ = no access.
This isn't a suppliment to what has become, in essence, a Utility.
Unfortunately, with the current Administration's track record on pro-corporation, pro-Inte
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 maj
Re:Why ask Congress? (Score:5, Insightful)
Allow me to elucidate.
It's because they are a Monopoly. It's because you, the customer, doesn't have any other reasonable choice if you don't want to go with them. It's because in return for being allowed to be a monopoly that they have to play by different rules than the open market. You take your choice of monopoly or open market, but once you make it quit yer complaining about the rules you initially agreed to follow!
Clear now?
Re:Why ask Congress? (Score:2, Insightful)
Government is the only monopoly in this picture. They rent their monopoly powers to others, though.
How are th
Re:Why ask Congress? Cable Next! (Score:2)
And when you cable company (don't think this traffic shaping is only for DSL carriers) starts degrading all VoIP services except for the one they're selling for twice the price you're paying otherwise and your calls even across town get all choppy well then...
Re:Why ask Congress? Cable Next! (Score:2)
Your point is well taken, but my point is that there is so much competition and so many access points to the bigger Internet, there is no single point of failure except ICANN.
Re:Why ask Congress? (Score:5, Insightful)
The telco is still there. Comcast doesn't have its own huge backbone running connections out to all of its own users around the USA, it uses the backbones provided by the big telco monopolies to do that. So if they decide to create special high-priority networks accessible only at a premium charge, and degrade the quality of the existing networks to make VOIP unusable, you'll have to pay extra for a premium Comcast account that can send data over the premium networks.
Unfortunately its next to impossible for anyone else to move in an build new networks that can challenge the big telcos, because years of overregulation kept everyone else out of the business for so long. So if the telcos manage to pull this one off, everyone who wants low-latency access will be paying extra to the big telcos unless a huge number of people pool their resources to build new backbones, which would most likely require government involvement that will make such actions illegal under the anti-municipal internet laws that the telcos will doublessly get pushed through at the federal level at the same time they get Congress to allow them to build the premium backbones.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Why ask Congress? (Score:2)
Because the wires wouldn't have gotten run without eminent domain. Without government intervention (perish the thought!), you'd quickly arrive at one of the following extremes:
"Interstate commerce clause?"
Can you pro
Re:Why ask Congress? (Score:3, Insightful)
Prove this. The original telegraphy and radiotelegraphy was created without government funding or mandate. The railroads that were built with private dollars and private aquisition of land were quickly regulated in order to control the procedures (and incorporate taxes), but the telegraphy lines were privately funded and controlled.
We believe we need government to help with communications because we've always had them around. I see many of
Re:Why ask Congress? (Score:5, Informative)
Absolutely untrue. The original telegraph companies had government-backed eminent domain powers. Further, they often relied on railroad landed (acquired through eminent domain). There were constant battles between the two; see, for instance, Western Union Tel Co v. Pennsylvania R Co, 195 U.S. 594 (1904), available at: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?
The Pennsylvania statute (mentioned in that ruling) granting eminent domain to the telegraph company was absolutely typical, and telegraph companies in the US relied on such mandates. Normally such power was granted to a single company, giving it a monopoly in the state or region.
Re:Why ask Congress? (Score:2)
In a competitive marketplace, there's generally no need for Congress to get too involved with what companies do with their property, beyond various provisions to avoid fraud, theft, and people's safety.
Note the key words: "competitive marketplace". A monopoly is not a "
Because they built on our land, with our money (Score:2)
Oh Good Lord, another uninformed, Libertarian knee-jerk response.
The reason(s) Congress has a say over how the telcos behave include the fact that
1) The telcos wire runs across public lands
2) The telcos are local monopolies (at least in terms of last-mile copper, and in many places, in terms of telecom services in general)
3) The telcos received subsidies to build their net
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.
Common Carrier Status (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Common Carrier Status (Score:3, Informative)
ahref=http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169910& t hreshold=1&commentsort=0&tid=95&mode=thread&pid=14 162317%2314165101rel=url2html-32438 [slashdot.org]http://slashdot
As long as they offer the same deals to everyone, without individualized contracts, they'd probably meet the nondiscrimination requirement of common carrier
Re:Common Carrier Status (Score:2)
Well thank the gods... (Score:2)
Oh, wait....
never mind.
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.
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:This leads directly to fraud (hear me out) (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This leads directly to fraud (hear me out) (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong.
You'll get the full T1 from your termination point to theirs. That is ALL the SLA covers. You are not guaranteed any type on link to other networks at all. Never ever. Telcos don't guarantee service on their competitors networks.
What most people dont' realize is that the common carriers DO THIS ALREADY. The connection equipment of choice is ATM, and that supports QoS. Leased circuits were configured with QoS depending on what was paid for by the customer. As a field engineer at Lucent, it was explicitly explained to us "see that level there, marked 'no guarantee, best effort'? That is all the Internet traffic -- lowest priority there is."
However, all this is done at the network level and not the transport level. Major carriers routinely ran their own circuits high priority. Anyone else who paid for one, also got high priority circuits. Everone else got 'best effort' links. Links where they didn't control both endpoints, like to a competitor thru a peering agreement, were 'best effort'.
The fuss is not that the carriers are doing this, it is that they want to do this further up the stack. They want to become more than carriers and get into the realm of "content providers". Thus, not just provide the wires, but the stuff on the wires as well. This is where they run afoul of the existing laws.
In essence, they want to do QoS at the TCP level. Personally, I think that is fine by me as long as it is TARRIFED like services are now. If SBC wants to do it for SBC produced content, they have to charge that division the same as if it was a Google, Yahoo or NBC service. The "premium" costs the same no matter WHO you are.
I'd love to have end-to-end QoS available, even if at a premium.
-Charles
And the simple answer is NO. (Score:2)
Maybe this will push Google into the ISP market so it can do no evil and make a lot of money.
Re:And the simple answer is NO. (Score:2)
Unless Google lays their own wire (or fiber, whatever), BS or AT&T would still be getting your money when Google pays to lease their lines for you.
What a mess (Score:3, Funny)
This will never happen (Score:4, Informative)
This, after all, was the whole purpose of it, since ARPANET was intended to be resilient to enemy attack if parts of it were taken out.
Re:This will never happen (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This will never happen (Score:5, Informative)
No it wouldn't. It is a common myth. TCP/IP was desgined to allow for dumb routers so that it is resiliant to damage. But TCP/IP does not enforce this feature. There is nothing to prevent smart routers from prioritising packets or simply dropping packets into the void. There is nothing preventing AT&T from closeing their massive network and disconnecting it from the Internet. The rest of the Internet will continue to function as designed, but that is little comfort to whose people who are left with an inferior network at a higher price.
Write your congresspeople! (Score:2)
Tell them this is a bad idea. Make up some ideas - I'm sure there will be plenty of discussion here.
Write them a physical letter if you can bear to touch it - those go farther...even if you're talking 'bout the internet.
--LWM
Re:Write your congresspeople! Non-physical (Score:2)
Actually physical letters don't carry the weight they did even a few years ago. After the anthrax scares many avoid them now like the Plague. While I can't say what is most effective now: faxes, e-mail, telephone calls, personal visits, visits to their local offices, I do know that the gold standard that each actual letter represents this many other people who never quite got their own
Don't worry! (Score:5, Funny)
Whew. That was a close one.
Telcoms (Score:3, Insightful)
Stop this Now! (Score:2)
Exactly why does this need legislation? (Score:2)
Of course these markings lose all meaning when the packet goes out of their AS, but if they want they can always set up peering agreements where the QoS is preserved..
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
Re:Difference between this and Internet2? IS!! (Score:2)
Well:
1: They can charge more for the premium service.
2: They can continue to degrade the basic serivce to force you to upgrade to the premium service and pay more.
Is this how you want to be treated by your telephone company?
An Old Issue (Score:2, Informative)
The idea pops up every few months, but in the end, it is economic suicide for a market that already has an open, neutral standard to splinter into a set of closed, preferential standards.
In short, the competition between providers will reduce their profit below the current 'tacit agreement' point it is currently at, thanks to the neutral standard. This is especially true as long as they are not offering any additional value with their servic
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.
Both sides (Score:2)
Compromise? (Score:2)
Markey said he's engaged in ''intense private negotiations" with telecom companies and congressional colleagues in search of a compromise.
How about this for a compromise? No. Bad Telcos... you had yours.
All it takes is 2 people to screw up the internet (Score:2)
Hmmm...I think I will do a search of these g
Time for more legislation! (Score:2)
But Damnit if I'm not tired of seeing law and legislation constantly being proposed to prop up older business practices in newer and changing environments. This *HAS* to be seen by our legislators as the quickest way to outmode our economy. While the rest of the world grows and changes with t
No way Jose (Score:2)
You know it aint going to happen.
Telcos win, everyone else looses... (Score:2)
charge people more to access your network at 'fast' speeds. Ok no problem. That's sort of been going on for a while with tiered speeds for broadband connections.
Telco's provide content targeted at those premium accounts. Again, ok by me. Paying more generally entitles you to more.
So now other sites that provide streaming auido or video or just use lots of bandwidth are going to have to pay a premium or face serious degradation of quality of service. Welp, that's not good for th
Why is this so hard? (Score:2)
So? (Score:2)
As other people have pointed out, I hope this loses them their common carrier status.
Changing the network topology of the internet to make sure they can continue to sell me extra services/features/content is crap. Imagine getting an itemized bill charging you additional moneys for accessing stuff other than their content.
I mean, really, WTF does AT
Are we there yet? (Score:2)
Re:Are we there yet? (Score:2)
From http://www.m-w.com/ [m-w.com] Main Entry: fascism
Pronunciation: 'fa-"shi-z&m also 'fa-"si-
Function: noun
Etymology: Italian fascismo, from fascio bundle, fasces, group, from Latin fascis bundle & fasces fasces
1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, seve
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 s
Easy for telcos to priorize (Score:2)
Translated (Score:2)
Translation of above paragraph...
The telcos basic fear, of course is that the end to end design of the net will further erode the telcos antiquated business model. The proposed solution is to use legislation to protect and keep t
What of common carrier status? (Score:2)
Will Verizon fight this? (Score:2)
Better Internet (Score:2, Funny)
Is this related to the other SBC story? (Score:2)
So are they going to create a seperate backbone as an excuse for this project? Think about it? They can't let just any ordinary user use the fiber backbone right? Oh well I guess you have to pay extra $$ for a less than 500 ping time for your favorite quakeserver.
If you
Hearings (Score:2)
Wrong Venue (Score:2)
Are barking up the wrong tree.
They would achieve much quicker success by just petitioning the FTC, the FCC, and/or the court systems.
Any one of the three organizational units above has consistently shown the propensity to gladly hand over to proviate hands assets the public has repeatly entrusted as public property.
Personally I'm fed up with providing right of ways, local monopolies, etc. only to see the courts, etc. say that those things suddenly exclusively belong to a private company.