Net Neutrality Opponent Calls Google a "Bandwidth Hog" 320
Adrian Lopez writes "According to PC World, an analyst with ties to the telecom industry — in a baseless attack on the concept of Net Neutrality — has accused Google Inc. of being a bandwidth hog. Quoting: '"Internet connections could be more affordable for everyone, if Google paid its fair share of the Internet's cost," wrote Cleland in the report. "It is ironic that Google, the largest user of Internet capacity pays the least relatively to fund the Internet's cost; it is even more ironic that the company poised to profit more than any other from more broadband deployment, expects the American taxpayer to pick up its skyrocketing bandwidth tab."' Google responded on their public policy blog, citing 'significant methodological and factual errors that undermine his report's conclusions.' Ars Technica highlighted some of Cleland's faulty reasoning as well."
Probably true (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Probably true (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're an ISP then you will note that almost all of your customers are hitting google, and google is sending data back to them. It's not the search engine crawler that people are complaining about, it's the traffic in both directions. The traffic that is a fundamental part of google's business.
Of course if both ends just paid a fair price for traffic (which is currently the case), then there does not need to be any complicated scheme of prioritizing packets at each hop based on what you paid to that provider.
Re:Probably true (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, but you're assuming that the "man in the middle", the ISP, doesn't have any business interest in things other than shuffling bits back and forth and solely getting paid to do that at a decent profit. Some of the ISPs (cable companies and the ILEC telcos themselves providing some of these big fat dedicated pipes to the Googles), also have internal business units that they want to push forth at the expense of the rest of the world they allege to serve. They want users on THEIR networks to use THEIR search engines, THEIR media delivery services, etc., not Google/YouTube, FaceBook, etc. Why? Well, they're not symbiotic partners, they're parasites. They don't want to be merely infrastructure that facilitates the rest of the system. They want to BE the system, and think that they are. The world of "The Matrix" is a colossal wet dream for them.
Google creates demand for the "man in the middle" (Score:5, Interesting)
What this is really about is whether the ISPs still have common carrier status, and how that conflicts with their vertical service integration for services like TV and phone. These ISPs are charging for what is either free or for less money elsewhere.
The solution is very simple. The FCC grants the ability for these anti-net-neutrality ISPs to charge whatever they like for whatever content they choose to carry over their networks, in exchange for the return of every government subsidy and grant given over the last five decades, with interest, in addition to the rescission of their common carrier status. The government can then take that money and give it to companies that will act like common carriers and build net-neutral data infrastructure.
Re:Google creates demand for the "man in the middl (Score:4, Informative)
In the US, ISPs do not have, and never have had, "common carrier status".
Re:Google creates demand for the "man in the middl (Score:5, Informative)
No, but the telcos have and some of them turned into ISPs too.
Re:Probably true (Score:5, Insightful)
you're assuming that the "man in the middle", the ISP, doesn't have any business interest in things other than shuffling bits back and forth and solely getting paid to do that at a decent profit.
And that is what they should be. They are a utility -- they have no more business trying to guide you to their search engines than your power company has trying to sell you their own brand of hair dryer.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
which is why it pissed me off when Verizon used to redirect my browser to their crappy branded search-engine rather than just relaying the DNS error--which i have a Firefox plug-in specifically for handling (by adding convenient google cache and way-back-machine links to the DNS error page).
i know a lot of libertarians see the Free Market as a cure-all for all the world's problems, but critical societal infrastructure like public utilities are too important to just leave to private corporations to commercia
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Put another way: I'm paying as a customer to access the world of the Internet, and as a business for the world of the Internet to access my sites. How in the *world* does Google need to contribute to payment in this anywhere?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't speak for anyone else on /. but as far as what I get Internet connectivity for, it's for access to the backbone so I can access services on other providers. Services such as google, youtube, hulu, tvland, amazon, and so forth. I couldn't give a flying leap about Comcast's internet service offerings; in fact, they are inferior to other portals such as yahoo, igoogle, and even msn. I don't want to use Comcast's internet services. I buy internet access to get access to the INTERNET, not Comcast's extra
Re:Probably true (Score:5, Interesting)
Prioritization based on "price paid" is moronic, and not seriously suggested, IMO. OTOH, prioritization is a perfectly legitimate tool for congestion management, which is at the core of the problem here. ISPs have historically oversubscribed based on the prevailing assumptions about customer utilization. Those assumptions no longer hold true, because sites like YouTube and applications like BitTorrent. ISPs can do one or both of increase infrastructure to match these new assumptions (at enormous cost), and/or implement some form of QoS to drop or delay one application's packet instead of another's, when congestion occurs (where a packet has to be dropped or delayed either way). You can still have a "fair price" being paid in either direction, and have a need for QoS (prioritization) to effectively manage congestion. This runs afoul of some definitions of "net neutrality", unfortunately, and is impractical to do anyway on an untrusted network (like the public Internet).
So ISPs are actually stuck between a rock and a hard place. You have to oversubscribe to be cost-effective (this is why business-grade 1Mbit data connections cost 10x more than consumer-grade; the former is not oversubscribed while the latter is). But since that ratio has to go down to match today's expectations (through no "fault" of the ISPs), ISPs have discovered that they have to invest in significant new infrastructure, and they're looking for creative ways to pay for that. Unfortunately, most telco ISPs aren't exactly creative, so this is what we get.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
10x more? Not anymore. I pay less than double the normal price on my business-class DSL line. I could never afford 10x more, but at this rate, I'm happy to pay the extra so I don't have to deal with any of this ISP traffic control nonsense.
Too bad they don't offers consumers this (Score:3, Insightful)
Then why don't the ISPs publicize this and offer consumer home connections that are not oversubscribed and charge a higher price for it, while continuing to offer hit or miss oversubscribed connections at the current rates? Those who are happy with sometimes slow traffic can stick with it, and the rest of us can move up to
Re:Probably true (Score:5, Insightful)
Through no fault of their own?
To the contrary. The big telecoms in the USA (and many other places the situation is similar) have already been paid out of tax money to build new networks with the required capacities. More than once. They take the money, they put it in their pockets instead of rolling out fibre and adding more trunks with it, then they come back to DC next year looking to get paid yet again for the job they still havent done.
Screw em.
Re:Probably true (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly how I see it.
I paid my ISP their asking price for my bandwidth.
Google paid their ISP for their bandwidth.
Why the hell would google have to pay my ISP a second time for my bandwidth?
I see it as nothing more than greed.
Re: (Score:3)
>>> Why the hell would google have to pay my ISP a second time for my bandwidth?
The truth? So Comcast, Time-Warner, et al don't block google.com from sending bits to you. That's what is running in the back of their minds: "Google better pay for access to our users, or we will simply block google." Extortion.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The truth? So Comcast, Time-Warner, et al don't block google.com from sending bits to you. That's what is running in the back of their minds: "Google better pay for access to our users, or we will simply block google." Extortion.
But by doing so, they'd also be blocking their own users, and many of them will probably leave for a competing ISP.
If there is one. The last mile monopolies need to die.
Not True. Economics 101 Fail. (Score:4, Insightful)
It is ironic that Google, the largest user of Internet capacity pays the least relatively to fund the Internet's cost
Economy of scale is not ironic. It is a appropriate, and makes sense to anyone who understands basic economics.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Google hits my server regularly - but doesnt use much bandwidth in doing so. But then again, I run Google ads on my sites, so they monitor the content to show more relevant ads. Considering most sites are 80% graphical, 20% html/css/javascript; these requests are no big deal.
When it comes to them indexing the site for their search engine, a simple directive in the robots.txt file to tell them how frequently you wish them to stop by is all that is needed - and is spelled out numerous places on the Internet
Re:Probably true (Score:5, Insightful)
The value provided by Google is far greater than the value provided by spammers. Take out the spam first.
Even though Google may drive traffic that's something that we can live with.
Re:Probably true (Score:5, Insightful)
If people don't want to be crawled by google they can just get a robots.txt
Re:Probably true (Score:5, Insightful)
In all likelihood, most of the sites being spidered want to be indexed by Google. If they don't, they can say so in their robots.txt file.
Re:Probably true (Score:4, Interesting)
First of all, the traffic a web site gets from Google's spider is dwarfed by the the traffic it gets from legit users.
Secondly, if it weren't for Google's spider the web site wouldn't receive a lot of user traffic anyway.
Finally, Google pays the telcos (but not the web site) for the spider traffic it generates on its end.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
First of all, the traffic a web site gets from Google's spider is dwarfed by the the traffic it gets from legit users.
First of all, you can use your Google account, register your website with them and see how often they crawl your web.
Secondly, you can use something pretty way OK like http://www.statcounter.com/ [statcounter.com] and monitor your own traffic.
Thirdly, you'll discover that there's no truth whatsoever in the assertion of your First of all.
Your first point is complete bullshit. I don't even want to guess how you made up the factual-sounding second point.
Thank you, come again.
Re:Probably true (Score:5, Informative)
Oh - and here's a big PS: If you feel you're getting too much spider traffic - meaning you're somehow SO wildly popular that you really believe Google is hitting you too often - you can reduce the Google crawl frequency via your Google webmaster account - voila, your (non-existent) problem solved.
And for those that don't use the service, and I do - the Google webmaster features in no way require you to be hosted at Google.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Probably true (Score:5, Funny)
Please disregard everything I just said and I apologize for my bad attitude.
I don't know how, but I read your first sentence 100% backwards from what you wrote.
I totally fucked up and I'm sorry.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Probably true (Score:5, Funny)
No problem, and I take back my insult above. I posted it before I read your second reply.
All is good.
Re: (Score:2)
And if they don't want google to crawl google unlike a few others actually obeys the robots.txt file.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see a way to use robots.txt to limit the number of crawler hits per interval other than just denying it. So you can block it, but that's undesirable if you want people to find it. It's also undesirable to have a robot hit your site every two seconds if ShieldW0lf is saying the truth, but robots.txt only address it in a simplistic allow / disallow.
Re: (Score:2)
its WAY STUPID to be complaining about a 4 k text file request creating any kind of load on a server.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yahoo has been guilty of large amount of spidering on my sites, but google is only once every week or so. But then I don't use php so much. If you don't like google doing what you see, then script a robots.txt file that changes according to
Re:excuse me, dont speak foolish (Score:4, Informative)
Several major crawlers support a Crawl-delay parameter, set to the number of seconds to wait between successive requests to the same server: [1] [2]
User-agent: *
Crawl-delay: 10
if-modified-since (Score:5, Informative)
Crawl-delay directive
Several major crawlers support a Crawl-delay parameter, set to the number of seconds to wait between successive requests to the same server: [1] [2]
User-agent: *
Crawl-delay: 10
Further, not only do the Google crawlers obey the robots.txt [robotstxt.org] described above (or other standards for robot exclusion), they also use HTTP's if-modified-since [w3.org] to make a conditional request. The file is only returned to the crawler if it has been changed. That saves a lot of time and bandwidth.
PC World will also lose out if double-dipping is allowed.
Re:excuse me, dont speak foolish (Score:4, Informative)
I don't see a way to use robots.txt to limit the number of crawler hits per interval other than just denying it. So you can block it, but that's undesirable if you want people to find it. It's also undesirable to have a robot hit your site every two seconds if ShieldW0lf is saying the truth, but robots.txt only address it in a simplistic allow / disallow.
I'm not sure if any of the other providers implement this, but Google does. SiteMaps [sitemaps.org]
Lets you specify how often to update certain content, what URLs to block. It's a more advanced robots.txt.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There are a lot of things you can do. If Googlebot is using too much bandwidth, you could easily (man tc) add an outbound QoS limit to your webservers.
http://www.google.com/search?q=googlebot+IP+range [google.com]
If you're unable to do this, there is the GoogleBot webmaster tools that let you manage your hit rate.
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters [google.com]
Phone companies are oxygen hogs (Score:5, Funny)
Phone companies are one of the single greatest causes of people talking. More people talking means more oxygen consumption. And the externalities of all that poisonous CO2 exhalation.
Phone companies are literally living off our dimes. And the Amazon and Sting and Al Gore don't even get a cut.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I love the smell of straw in the morning...
More Laws (Score:2)
Hey, I just conducted a study and found out that my interconnect connection would be more affordable if Scott Cleland payed for my bandwidth costs.
There oughta be a law!
And just to be clear, is Scott Cleland proposing that well-run companies should be transferring their profits to all poorly-run companies, or just the poorly-run telecoms?
Fair Share (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fair Share (Score:5, Insightful)
It's extortion, nothing else. Pay us, or the people on our network might have "difficulty" reaching your site. Not much different from the people who threaten to knock out gambling sites just before the superbowl.
Can you imagine other industries trying this crap? Cable and satellite companies extorting the networks, demanding payment from the most popular TV shows, because that's what most TV users are watching, clogging up their tubes?
Net Neutrality opponents want to get away with committing extortion. Always keep that in mind when these arguments brew up.
Re:Fair Share (Score:5, Informative)
Cable TV already does this -- they want paid for access to their tubes. We, as Time Warner Cable customers, recently lost our ability to watch the local Fox affiliate for a few weeks.
Why?
Cable company wanted paid to carry Fox, while Fox wanted paid to be carried on Cable. This went on and on, with various hateful ads about Time Warner appearing on Fox prior to the blackout. And then, one day, it was dark.
Eventually, they figured it out. Not sure who is paying who, or if they just went back to the ages-old arrangement wherein no money changes hands. But it's back, for now.
It doesn't really matter to me, in this instance. All I watch on Fox is House, and it's easy enough to snag episodes from TPB.
But if I sed s/Cable/AT&T/ and also sed s/Fox/Google/, it'd be a very sorry state of affairs.
Re:Fair Share (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What they expect is that their customer are ignorant sheep who will shrug, blame the problem on Google, and proceed to use
Maybe Google should start charging them (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
True. At least one person I know got Internet access after a demo showing that you can find anything you want with Google. I'm sure there are more.
Imagine if my gardening hardware store was *so good* that people started buying pickup trucks to haul gardening material from my store to their homes. But the pickup truck companies, instead of being grateful for the extra business, are complaining?
Re:Maybe Google should start charging them (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously. If telcos want start to throttle Google, all Google has to do throw up a web page for the affected users with something like the following:
"Dear Google/YouTube user: Your ISP, ISP_NAME, doesn't believe that you should be able to access the web sites and services that you want to, such as Google or YouTube. If you don't feel that this is fair, please contact ISP_NAME at ISP_PHONE_NUMBER and let them know how you feel. You may also want to consider switching to another ISP, such as one of the following in your area: (insert auto-generated list of ISPs that don't throttle Google)"
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously. If telcos want start to throttle Google, all Google has to do throw up a web page for the affected users with something like the following:
"Dear Google/YouTube user: Your ISP, ISP_NAME, doesn't believe that you should be able to access the web sites and services that you want to, such as Google or YouTube. If you don't feel that this is fair, please contact ISP_NAME at ISP_PHONE_NUMBER and let them know how you feel. You may also want to consider switching to another ISP, such as one of the following in your area: (insert auto-generated list of ISPs that don't throttle Google)"
This....I can't believe their trying to start this little war by going after google first. To many people google is the internet. If they started throwing up a pages like this the offending ISP will have its call center completely hosed with complaints.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The ISPs won't care, just so long as they continue getting their monthly tithe from the complainers.
Re:Maybe Google should start charging them (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, but which of those two would be the first to throw a few dollars at Google for a front-page endorsement to their competitor's users?
Re:Maybe Google should start charging them (Score:5, Informative)
That would make the user experience worse for those users.
Based on that fact and everything I know about Google, that type of change: Will. Not. Happen.
(disclosure: I work for Google)
Bad economics? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not sure technical arguments are really necessary to demonstrate this as bunk. Google's services add a lot of value to a consumer's bandwidth. I would wager that their contributions exceed their consumption.
The fucking non-sense? (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed, plus... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Telcos are lying to us (a lie of omission): They carefully avoid estimating the reduction in total bandwidth consumed due to the optimization that search engines provide. Search engines serve as a repository of index information used to optimize our access to internet services and products. The net effect is reduced resource utilization.
Earth to telcos: Google is an example of a service that increases the value of the internet, which drives our willingness to pay for it. I have been an internet user since modem dialup days. My use of the service has increased during the last 18 years because it provides value. Google improves that value. It's a big win for the telcos and service providers, and they are trying to prevent us from recognizing that fact.
Free bandwidth indeed! Google pays for every bit of their bandwidth just like everyone else, probably with a bulk discount just like every other customer of a service with a predictable and large utilization.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think they're complainting that Youtube (owned by Google) is very popular with their users. Which, when you think about it, is a strange thing to complain about.
How much do they pay? (Score:3, Interesting)
"It is ironic that Google, the largest user of Internet capacity pays the least relatively to fund the Internet's cost
So how much does Google pay for it's usage of the Internet?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:How much do they pay? (Score:5, Interesting)
The report [precursorblog.com] makes a wild-ass-guess that Google pays $344M for its bandwidth, and that since (allegedly) 16.5% of a user's broadband bandwidth is for Google content, and consumers pay $44 billion for broadband in the US, Google is cheating "taxpayers" (WTF?) out of $6.9 billion.
Of course, the numbers are dubious to start with, comparing mixed fruit to oranges, and suggesting that a major Internet content provider (and consumer) should have to pay the same rates as residential broadband customers is flat out laughable (though perhaps a nice goal). If anything, all this report shows is that consumers are paying 21x more than Google is, suggesting those same ISPs are robbing them blind and (in this guy's case) stupid.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The report [precursorblog.com] makes a wild-ass-guess that Google pays $344M for its bandwidth, and that since (allegedly) 16.5% of a user's broadband bandwidth is for Google content, and consumers pay $44 billion for broadband in the US, Google is cheating "taxpayers" (WTF?) out of $6.9 billion.
So if I get really popular and pay $344M for my telephony services, "taxpayers" pay $44 billion for theirs and they call me 16.5% of their time, am I cheating them out of something that was theirs?
Point being: someone has an idea about how the Internet pricing structure should be that doesn't match reality. They're entitled to their opinion. I'm entitled to say it's wrong ;)
And teh horrors! American tax payers are subsidizing Europeans, Asians, Africans and other nice people visiting Google. We're total
Re:How much do they pay? (Score:5, Insightful)
The telco's and backbone providers would love you to look at it that way.
It's important to note that there is a war on for how the Internet is perceived. The telco's would love to create the legal perception that a "broadcast model" is at work. ie: Google "broadcasts" over the tubes, and pays the tube-owners nothing. The reality -- which they are trying so desperately to avoid -- is that http is a 'request'.
The revenue stream comes from the users who pay for the right to make these requests and receive the response data.
When they say "it is ironic that Google, the largest user of Internet capacity", they're clouding the issue: Google is the "most requested service" on the Internet.
The telcos are attempting to 'share the wealth' by taxing popularity.
It is the users that are the bandwidth hogs. After all, without the users Google doesn't use much bandwidth at all.
Re:How much do they pay? (Score:5, Insightful)
Google pays exactly the amount that Google's ISP was willing to accept. If that's too low, then Google's ISP shouldn't have accepted it!
The ISPs on the other end of the connection -- the ones complaining -- have peering agreements (directly or indirectly) with Google's ISP. If they want more money, they need to negotiate more favorable terms for their peering agreement, causing Google's ISP to raise its rates. All this noise about charging Google again for what it already paid for is greedy, offensive, and ridiculous!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So what? How is that Google's problem?
If they want "the force of law" to help them then they should pursue anti-trust complaints against Cogent, not try to legalize extortion against content providers!
ISPs and HDD manufacturers (Score:3, Informative)
There's a local company offering a 1.5TB external drive when you order a 2mbit or faster internet connection. Since few people are likely to fill the drive up with holiday photos, the use for this combo is obvious.
ISPs and digital storage manufacturers benefit from online piracy. I'd wager the profits are greater than the loss the content producers face, and are of net benefit to the global economy.
But, my perspective on the issue is skewed. I've been a pirate since I was 7. :p
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd wager the profits are greater than the loss the content producers face, and are of net benefit to the global economy.
The problem is that if everybody pirate, the musician gets no money, starves to death, and stops playing. ... Or just stops playing because it can't be their day job ;)
Bandwidth hog? (Score:3, Interesting)
I was under the impression that Google purchased business/carrier Internet facilities (OC3/OC12/OC48/OC192 and Gig-E interconnects) just like any other major business.
Unlike shared residential services such as cable/DSL/FIOS, these are dedicated facilities. They are paying for all their bandwidth, whether they use it or not.
How can they be "hogging" what they are paying for?
Re: (Score:2)
I think the ISPs are complaining that their customers are using the internet connection they paid for to watch youtube videos.
But then, if it wasn't for things like youtube, most people would be happy to stay on dial-up.
Re:Bandwidth hog? (Score:5, Informative)
That's exactly right. The customers paid for a shared connection. Google (Youtube) paid for a commercial connection. The ISPs are already being paid twice for transporting the same bits.
Since the customer's connection is shared, there is no service guarantee. If contention is too high, bits get dropped. If too many bits get dropped, and the customer has a choice, they can go to another ISP.
To summarize, ISPs are currently double-dipping, and they don't like competition. To solve this "problem", they propose triple-billing for transport so they don't have to re-invest as much in infrastructure. The "net neutrality" spin is just an obfuscation of what would otherwise be an obvious abuse of their position.
because (Score:2)
fairness is crap (Score:4, Insightful)
The consumers use bandwidth, and it is the consumers who should shoulder a significant cost of the bandwidth. Google, et al, need to pay for the redundant lines that connect their facility. It is true that due to different usage patterns, some consumer will pay out of proportion. It is also true that some taxpayers will pay for something they do not use. But such is life.
Let's say that I am in the city. I drive like 20 or 20 miles a day, and the roads I do use are well traveled and largely cheap surface roads. Then why am I paying taxes and high gas taxes to subsidize the suburbanites excessive travel and wear and tear on the roads? Well, for one thing I do not want them in the city. Second, i need them in the city to serve me. I am likely paying out of proportion of my direct use, but not me total use.
It is the same thing with taxes. Suppose I am in the top 25% of the income. I likely am part of the group that pays a huge percentage of the nations taxes, maybe even in excess of the proportion of money that I earn. This is caused by the fact that the bottom third of the wage earners pay almost no taxes. A family earning 30K, after deductions, maybe a token couple thousand. That is, of course, because we all get a deduction basic living expenses, just like business only pays on profit, actual humans pay taxes only on their excess income, and the more money you make, the more actual excess income you have. It is an observable that 50% of the population have almost no excess income, while, when on reaches the 10 20% of the wage earners, excess income becomes the majority.
On one hand this is bad, as it means I pay higher taxes. OTOH, this allows us to keep wages low, as it is possible to pay barely enough to keep a family together. If everyone had to pay, say, 10%, then many family might double their tax bill, which might force them to ask for raises, which they would need to have to survive. This might mean that a couple who had been earning $9 an hour each, might now need to ask for $10, which might be more than a business could afford without increasing costs.And since business do not increase cost proportionately, such an increase could end up costing more overall. Or at least this is the conservative arguments.
So, fairness is not really crap, but fairness is dangerous, as people will inevitable skew the facts to make themselves the victims.
Re: (Score:2)
This fairness thing is crap. Anytime I hear someone talk about it, and over the pst 15 years it has been mostly conservatives, at least with respect to monetary issues, I want to ask them, like, what are you, 10?
When I hear it, it's usually a liberal trying to rationalize punitive tax rates to fund social engineering projects like welfare.
Re:fairness is crap (Score:4, Insightful)
well, it's that or fund punitive social engineering projects like jails and prisons...
No they arent. but they SHOULD be (Score:2)
if there isnt network neutrality, entrepreneurship will become impossible without amassing huge capital before attempting anything. for, noone will be able to set up a web service with 3-4 figure bucks and then proceed to become millionaires.
the big money who enjoyed ruling the world is annoyed with this prospect.
if the number of entrepreneurs rising to
No, ISPs are the hogs (Score:3, Interesting)
considering all the pointers at hand, i have decided that the supposed 'an analyst with ties to the telecom industry' is either a non person that is invented to propagate a shitty corporate agenda, or a corporate shill to attempt justifying controlling internet, YET AGAIN.
you americans are WAY too much tolerant of this 'lobbying' thing. way too much.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think I agree with that. People will always find ways to use up their bandwidth. Yesterday, it was MP3s. Today it's DVDs. Tomorrow it'll be Bluray. Next week maybe it'll be always-on über-resolution live video streams. Give everyone gigabit connections and people will find a way to use that bandwidth.
The problem here isn't so much that the bandwidth is ov
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This conclusion seems bizarre to me. The ISPs "oversold their resources" (oversubscribed their data connections) based on sound, rational thinking at the time. They failed to anticipate the explosive growth of bandwidth-hungry services. Hindsight is 20/20. Like every other Big Business, they're going to try and point the finger elsewhere (such as the services "responsible" for t
Google is not the hog (Score:3, Informative)
The people who go to Google are the hogs. If your pricing model doesn't take into consideration your consumer's usage patterns, then FAIL.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Neither Google nor the customers are the hogs -- they each paid for their half of the connection! The ISPs are the hogs, because they want Google to pay TWICE!
users bandwidth (Score:2)
I don't think Google is a "push" provider. Google does not use any bandwidth. It is the individuals consuming Google's services that are using the bandwidth and they are paying for it.
Lets not forget (Score:2)
This is the same company who had a monopoly on the US phone network, and only allowed AT&T phones to connect to it (for 'network stability' reasons), and only allowed AT&T answering machines.. make a buck on the line, and then make a buck selling the stuff that connects to it; Sounds like their still trying to play the same game :)
There's an awesome response on the googleblog which makes a good read:
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/12/response-to-phone-companies-google.html [blogspot.com]
Good for PC World (Score:2)
It isn't every day that the glossies "get it", or even pay attention.
Next: the Wall Street Journal (;-))
--dave
Whiners (Score:2)
Bla bla its not fair, bla bla bla.
This isn't worth even printing, let alone having a discussion over..
A Modest Proposal - Block Google (Score:5, Insightful)
So ISPs are losing money because of Google? Fine. They should do what Sprint did and block all access to Google. Let their customers use the "Internet" of the ISPs email and the ISPs news. Let's see how long that lasts.
ISPs need to wake up and realize that people don't want their email, don't want their home pages, don't want their internet "content", and almost universally don't want anything the ISP provides except a pipe to the outside world.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, depending on how they spin it, they might also lash out at Google. Don't forget that some people actually believe the drivel AT&T is spouting.
What? No mention of Alanis? (Score:3, Funny)
A misuse of the term "ironic" and no one has mentioned Alanis Morissette yet? Where is this world heading to?
TV companies should pay electric bills (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'd love to read the Google post... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'd love to read the Google post... (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, you're wrong.
From a business standpoint, you'd be right, except that Google was designed to be a search engine, not a way to sell advertising, so the GP is correct.
Google is designed to be an excellent search engine with minimal interference that very quickly leads consumers to the sites they were searching for. It also sells advertising within that limitation.
As proof that you're wrong, Google doesn't carry the high-profit pop-up or pop-under ads, flash based ads or image ads on their own search engine, even though they offer them through Adsense. They don't offer them, because they'd be in the way of the primary design functionality of the Google website.
Re:I'd love to read the Google post... (Score:5, Interesting)
I work for Google, so I'm biased, but here's how I see it.
The Google search engine is supposed to be as useful as possible to users so that they will use it. Google adds some compromises to the usability of search (aka ads) so that the resources behind search are paid for along with a healthy profit.
That's the order of priorities as they have been repeatedly described to me.
Google search provides space where advertisers can pay for space that is simultaneously useful to users (something they're interested in investigating) and to advertisers (a selling opportunity). The first part (useful to users) is what Google is motivated to enforce, because then the ads also support the original statement: "The Google search engine is supposed to be as useful as possible to users so that they will use it."
I can't deny that Google uses usage data to improve the quality of search, but I'll assert that (1) everyone at Google is well aware of it's potential for "big brother" type scenarios and (2) everyone at Google is also aware that even a passing hint of misusing personal data would threaten the user trust on which Google's value is based. Google does better when people can trust Google, and I don't believe that an instance of data misuse would stay secret for more than a day. Far too many Googlers work there because they also trust Google's "don't be evil" policy. If Google was to breach user trust, employee trust would also be lost.
In conclusion: yes, Google system software is paying close attention to how you use Google. But no, it's not keeping a dossier on you. the goal of that software is most explicitly not to keep an eye on you, but to provide feedback so that the next time you use Google, it's even more useful to you.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Because they're not in a business relationship with Google. The traffic from Google appears at their network borders as a result of transit contracts with tier-1 carriers, not with Google directly.
Basically some providers see themselves in an important enough position to try and negotiate deals which put them higher up in the food chain. Instead of bargaining with world-wide network backbone connections, these ISPs try to bargain with their end-user reach.
Network neutrality is a (necessary) kludge, because
Re:Charge more? (Score:5, Insightful)
The "they" that are complaining about google not paying their "fare share" aren't the same "they" that sell google their bandwidth. The "they" that are complaining actually want google to pay for the pipe to the backbone and again for the pipe down to the actual consumer of the content; the problem is I all ready pay for the pipe from the backbone to my computer. I don't mind a company making a fair profit in a competitive market but what they want is to double-dip after already getting billions in tax incentives and favorable legislation and regulations.
Re:Charge more? (Score:4, Insightful)
The "they" that are complaining about google not paying their "fare share" aren't the same "they" that sell google their bandwidth
So charge Google's providers more for peering. Or just don't connect to them and see how many customers you get if you Google isn't reachable from your part of the Internet.
Re:Charge more? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not an expert on all things google, but it wouldn't surprise me if google actually owned as much bandwidth as they bought. If ATandT and Verizon's consumer ISP had to buy their bandwidth at the competitive rates other ISPs pay from their parent companies, it might be cheaper for them to plug into google at the IPX and cut their parent companies out of the equation.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The people complaining have peering arrangements in place with those who serve Google and should renegotiate with THOSE providers if they don't like the results.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If the government had just stayed out of it, there wouldn't be a problem.
Alternatively, if the companies had been less greedy and, y'know, invested some of their huge profits back into infrastructure...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If there wasn't government intervention there'd be even less free market in the ISP market than there is now.
The only reason you have a choice of phone companies is because the government forces them to share the infrastructure, without that, only really large companies could afford to offer you phone service at all because they'd either have to build their own infrastructure(which is prohibitively expensive) or hire it out from Bell(they're back if you hadn't noticed) at whatever price they choose to charg