How 'Fast Lanes' Will Change the Internet 192
An anonymous reader writes "Net neutrality has been looking pretty shaky in recent months. Netflix has started paying Comcast and Verizon directly and the FCC is saying that's perfectly fine. We may be witnessing a fundamental change in the nature of the internet. Timothy B. Lee at Vox explains how all of this works, and what it means for the future of the web. Quoting: '[S]ome of the largest ISPs now seem to view declining network performance not as a technical problem to be solved so much as a source of leverage in business negotiations. Another reason is that regulating interconnection is much more complex than a "classic" network neutrality rule. When all of an ISP's traffic comes through one cable, it's not too hard to write a rule requiring that the packets in that cable be treated equally. But it's harder to write a rule governing when and how ISPs must interconnect. Someone needs to pay for the cost of these connections, and the fairest way to split the costs depends on many subtle factors, including geography, traffic patterns, and the relative size of the interconnecting networks. A poorly written interconnection rule could create a lot of work for lawyers without actually preventing abusive practices.'"
Micro transactions. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Micro transactions. (Score:4, Interesting)
Reasons like this is why I'm so glad the Netherlands chose to enshrine net neutrality in law.
Otherwise we'd have to put up with shit like this:
http://cdn5.geekinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/2221.jpg [geekinsider.com]
USA, enjoy your tiered priced internet service, your net neutrality is no more.
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please don't make it sound like the american public is in favor of this kind of crap. We're divided into 3 camps.
1. those who don't care (95%)
2. those who are against it (4.999999%);
3. the guilty greedy fucks who are implementing it. (0.000001%)
people care about getting fsked (Score:2)
I agree with your distribution but I disagree with how you define your first category & your numberic distribution
1. "those who dont care" is wrong...virtually ***everyone*** cares about getting screwed over by a corporation
the problem is the reporters, editors who chose news stories, and the non-tech people who read the information **don't undrestand that they are getting screwed**
and that's just the people who still feel it is within their power to change if they *are* getting screwed
that's your probl
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I think you'll find a fair number of democrats with their ties to the content industry who salivate over a tiered internet, or turning the internet into cable TV 2.0. but the rest of it, yeah i'd agree.
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Only one rule that would prevent this crap. Unfortunately, it would have to come from Congress:
"All Internet Service Providers are required to treat each data packet and/or stream passing within its networks with equal priority, without regard to source, content, or destination. Failure to do so will incur a fine of 1% of the provider's calculated annual revenue for each week this condition is not corrected to the satisfaction of prosecutors, plus an additional 1% of annual revenue for each week the conditi
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The whole summary and article is about why exactly that is insufficient.
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Unfortunately that rule would cripple the net. The wording doesn't leave any room to filter out DDoS and other malicious traffic. It's essential that ISPs retain that ability.
They were already paying (Score:4, Insightful)
This buys into the framing of the argument pushed by the ISPs. The content providers were already paying for their own connection to the internet. Now if content providers want to provide fast connections to their customers, then they not only have to pay their own ISP, but they also need to send money to every other ISP in the world. This fundamentally changes the structure of the market.
And you, as a customer, get a crappy connection to the internet unless the content providers pay. That's true regardless of what you pay your ISP for their advertised bandwidth.
If this goes too far, customers will eventually start suing their ISPs for false advertising. ISP customers are paying for a certain amount of bandwidth, not a certain amount of bandwidth IF the content providers also pay.
Re:Micro transactions. (Score:4, Insightful)
One problem is that folks have to pay Comcast for decent internet service, and also they have to pay Netflix for a subscription. Fine of course, but if Netflix has to pony up extra fast-lane and direct-lane fees, ultimately their subscription prices increase. So Comcast+Netflix customers essentially get a hidden charge for their video streaming, one directly to Comcast and the other indirectly to Comcast (through Netflix). The real problem is that the indirect fee also applies to DSL and satellite customers, so you can't even avoid this fee by choosing a Comcast competitor.
I can understand wanting a free market system to avoid tragedy-of-the-commons types of issues with Netflix customers causing other non-streaming subscribers to get worse performance, but this present "solution" is clearly broken and gives Comcast and other last-mile providers a significant economic influence over other companies like Netflix that does not derive from consumer choice.
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> The real problem is that the indirect fee also applies to DSL and satellite customers,
That is interesting, it seams like Netflix needs a surcharge to customers using Comcast or other providers that make them pay up. Netflix tried shaming them by showing the worst providers, didn't work.
I think the worst problem is for possible Netflix competitors, Netflix was big enough to make agreement and pay for preferred access. A new competitor cannot compete with Netflix until they make the same agreements.
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Customer has to pay overquota fees because the same ISP don't want you to use resources...
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Since by and large the public paid for the infrastructure -- nationalize it ,and grant leases to companies like Comcast to administer it. That way they'd have to actually compete on price and service.
Think MNVO's for internet service. Internet access is basically approaching the rank of necessity, and frankly leaving necessities in the hands of for-profit monopolies sounds like a recipe for gouging consumers.
Real Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Break up the big providers to ensure meaningful competition. The end consumers wouldn't tolerate ISP's that deliberately provide crappy service if they weren't forced to because most areas only have one broadband provider.
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I agree - but with the proposed Comcast / TW merger, things appear to be moving in the opposite direction.
Also, I'd like to see a defined split between bandwidth and content providers. Allow companies to offer one or the other, but not both.
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Inevitably, there will be reciprocity deals between content providers and transit providers. Either above the table or under it.
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Break up the big providers to ensure meaningful competition.
That doesn't solve the problem of the 2K and 4K video download from Netflix and other services. Fully half of prime time download traffic in the states was a Netflix stream before Netflix offered a streaming only service, before Netflix had HD service.
Re:Real Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Break up the big providers to ensure meaningful competition.
Even better - regulate them like any other utility, right down to capping their profit margins.
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Not just break up. Separate into 3 distinct companies.
1. owns the cables. especially the local loops. rents it out to anyone who wants to be an ISP, at FRAND terms.
2. the ISP. provides the internet service.
3. The content provider.
Make it illegal for any single company to supply services in more then 1 category.
And because the cables are a natural monopoly it should be either owned by a Municipality or strictly regulated.
Not A Real Solution. Here Is The Real Solution. (Score:2)
Break up the big providers to ensure meaningful competition. The end consumers wouldn't tolerate ISP's that deliberately provide crappy service if they weren't forced to because most areas only have one broadband provider.
That's not a solution. That's like mowing the lawn; they'd just come back.
Proof: they started out small. That didn't stop things from getting where they are now.
The solution is change the rules of their business. How? By getting the FCC to regulate them as Title II Common Carriers, as they should have in the first place. Then almost all of these problems simply disappear overnight.
Common Carriers are not allowed to discriminate based on content (in fact -- wonder of wonders -- they are not even all
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That might work if we were starting from scratch, but as it is we'd be starting from a place where the big corporations are already so entrenched that merely leveling the playing field is unlikely to make up for the decades of corruption.
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This is why you have a choice between the local phone company or the local cable company for internet service.
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Yes, but interconnection issues aren't a last mile problem.
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Problem is that I don't trust the municipalities to stay out of content filtering. Access to sites based on what's political popular is even worse than access to sites based on who can pay the most.
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The solution is to make the physical infrastructure a municipal commodity. Then providers can openly compete on service.
No, that's not the solution, that is the problem. The monopolies and oligopolies exist precisely because of this - the municipal powers will gladly sign over near-perpetual rights to the highest bidder, not the ones offering best service.
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So don't let them do that.
The city (or whatever) should run fiber (or whatever) to each house. That fiber should terminate in a CITY OWNED site.
The city then rents/leases space at that site for whichever companies want to provide Internet access to the city people. The rent/lease being high enough to pay for the maintenanc
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You're getting a little technical there but that's a great idea.
Particularly if you combine it with IPv6.
Like they care (Score:2)
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It always was.
Rule #1 Lawyers Win (Score:3)
Whatever happens it will be constructed so that lawyers get their danegeld. And a non-trivial amount.
Every carriage agreement will require verifiable traffic levels and performance all of this will have to have minutly agreed upon measurement processes.
The whole notion is very B-Ark worthy. And will result in a lot of work for the providers.
Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone actually pointed out something I've been saying for a while. My point was that traffic shaping rules don't make any sense if an ISP peers with preferred providers of services. Say they want to provide quality VoIP. They don't need to shape competitors packets, they just need to keep their VoIP traffic off congested links. Duh! Net neutrality rules wouldn't have covered peering.
So now the government is talking about regulating peering. I feared this would happen once someone woke up to how the Internet actually works. I really don't see how any good can come of this. As I've stated previously, there was an article YEARS ago that pointed out that Yahoo! only paid for half of their bandwidth requirements. They had their own national network that they would deliver content directly to ISP's. It was a win-win because the traffic would stay off the transit links of both Yahoo! and the ISP's. They were connecting content to eyeballs. It wasn't traditional settlement-free peering, but it was a good thing. Nothing wrong with it. Peering is good. Why should the government get involved with this?
As far as Netflix is concerned, they painted themselves into a corner. They used a CDN (Cogent) that had settlement-free peering with many networks. Once Netflix started sending their traffic over those links it broke the settlement-free agreement. Netflix might have been in a better position if they didn't use a CDN and all their traffic went over transit. Then make agreements directly with the large ISP's that didn't involve existing peering ports.
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As far as Netflix is concerned, they painted themselves into a corner. They used a CDN (Cogent) that had settlement-free peering with many networks. Once Netflix started sending their traffic over those links it broke the settlement-free agreement. Netflix might have been in a better position if they didn't use a CDN and all their traffic went over transit. Then make agreements directly with the large ISP's that didn't involve existing peering ports.
And since there mathematically can be only one example of a single company pushing 60% of all the data into the tubes during peak hours, nothing done in response to their situation is generalizable to the rest of the Internet in the US. Let's just leave the Netflix situation out of it and we'll end up with better proposals.
Re:Finally (Score:4, Interesting)
Netflix is a perfectly good example to look at. There's no reason Netflix's media should be getting privilege over Amazon media, AT&T media, Google media, Comcast media, or some guy in Delaware's media. If I want to use a less popular service or run things over a corporate network linked through the internet, it should not be throttled so that Netflix gets priority. The two main problems seem to be: ...
1. The internet service providers don't want to upgrade their infrastructure.
2. The internet service providers are unwilling to meter the activities that would actually make them upgrade their network because they can make more money degrading service, not upgrading the network, and not fixing their peering arrangements.
How do you "meter" Netflix? ICANN has the root addresses to blocks in networks that can very easily be used to calculate an abstract "distance". If a customer exceeds a certain amount, say X gigabytes from a "long distance" provider, you need to "meter" it and bill them more. This would be neutral and a way of fairly charging customers for their usage. Shady backroom deals with Comcast and Verizon are no way to do honest business when the wires have a right of way through my property.
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Someone actually pointed out something I've been saying for a while. My point was that traffic shaping rules don't make any sense if an ISP peers with preferred providers of services. Say they want to provide quality VoIP. They don't need to shape competitors packets, they just need to keep their VoIP traffic off congested links. Duh! Net neutrality rules wouldn't have covered peering.
At least with that, they couldn't target competetor's VoIP. They'd have to sacrifice *all* their peered HTTP etc. just to harm competitor's voice. So long as there was any competition, that would end them.
So now the government is talking about regulating peering.
That's because anyone smart enough to understand the issues is smart enough to stay away from politics. The problem is our democracy is broken. Peering is secondary. The simpler solution is to regulate the customer experience. I don't care how you peer, how you deliver services, how many QoS levels y
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Deliberately harming traffic from Cogent to hamper Netflix is anti-consumer, and in a regulated market, should be illegal.
Did they actively *harm* Cogent? If the original agreement was settlement-free peering and Netflix changed that balance dramatically, who is at fault? It seems to me the right way to handle the situation is for Netflix to come in and create a new peering agreement that is not settlement free. Just like Yahoo! did 10-15 years ago. The problem is that Netflix is way more demanding than Yahoo! ever was. ISP's saw Yahoo!'s imbalanced peering a win-win. Netflix has a harder sell because the huge amount of data t
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Did they actively *harm* Cogent? If the original agreement was settlement-free peering and Netflix changed that balance dramatically, who is at fault?
You are presuming a contract breach by Netflix. I've seen nothing to indicate that any "agreement" was changed or not followed. Do you know what the agreement was that you are asserting wasn't followed?
The Internet was "originally" not designed as you describe. Current agreements lean towards ISPs paying for downstreams, not upstreams. In "fairness" the users who paid for Internet Access are the ones paying for the Internet, and the ISP is required to deliver it. Small ISPs solve this by buying transit.
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You are presuming a contract breach by Netflix. I've seen nothing to indicate that any "agreement" was changed or not followed. Do you know what the agreement was that you are asserting wasn't followed? The Internet was "originally" not designed as you describe. Current agreements lean towards ISPs paying for downstreams, not upstreams. In "fairness" the users who paid for Internet Access are the ones paying for the Internet, and the ISP is required to deliver it. Small ISPs solve this by buying transit. Large ISPs have enough content/connections that others pay them for transit. They should have been paying Netflix for transit, as Netflix was generating the content. If content didn't cost, why do so many ISPs pay Google and Akami to reduce their demands for content?
Netflix didn't breach contract. Cogent did by going outside the agreed ratio for peering. When that happens, the person taking on the extra traffic gets payed to transport it. Cogent wasn't prepared to handle all the extra traffic Netflix generated. They needed to charge Netflix more for the service so they could cover their transport costs with their peers. They also needed to upgrade the links.
Again, nothing to do with net neutrality. It is just business.
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When that happens, the person taking on the extra traffic gets payed to transport it.
It isn't transit when it's going to the ISP's customers. Cogent paying "transit" to an ISP to reach that ISP's customers is the opposite of all agreements before. If the ISP is actually acting as transit for some, then it's a different matter, but the idea of Cogent needing to "pay" an ISP to reach that ISP's customers is the opposite of all agreements I've ever seen.
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"So now the government is talking about regulating peering. I feared this would happen once someone woke up to how the Internet actually works. I really don't see how any good can come of this."
it's the government, "good" has nothing to do with it. they want control and power. regulate, is what they do. control is what they want. outcome is not important to them. repeat.
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So now the government is talking about regulating peering. I feared this would happen once someone woke up to how the Internet actually works. I really don't see how any good can come of this.
A simple fix would be to regulate residential facing ISPs to not allow congested links. ISPs may run business connection however they want, because businesses have SLAs protecting them, but residential users do not have the time or professional knowledge to properly protect themselves from being taken advantage of. If an ISP decides to hand out 100mb connection to all customers and suddenly their link to Netflix is congested, then that ISP best fix the issue by either upgrading the link or changing to anoth
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yeah, but it should also be on netflix on then to send their data in a more efficient manner and pay for this if needed. netflix used to pay limelight for CDN until last year
those of us who don't care about netflix that much should not pay higher ISP bills for a small group of people who demand this service
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...Yahoo! only paid for half of their bandwidth requirements. They had their own national network that they would deliver content directly to ISP's. It was a win-win because the traffic would stay off the transit links of both Yahoo! and the ISP's.
Exactly right. This is what most major content providers do. Google, Microsoft, etc... etc... There are actually major companies that help facilitate this sort of thing. This was the central problem with Netflix. The refused to do any of this. The told the ISPs to go to hell, they'd do what they wanted rather than get themselves locked into an agreement that my prevent them from saving money on a better peering deal down the road. Netflix forced the Net Neutrality issue on the ISPs and the ISPs unfortunate
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Netflix offers to bring the bandwidth to the ISP for free, with their content boxes. They will happily deliver their content directly to the ISP. But free was not good enough for Verizon.
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The told the ISPs to go to hell, they'd do what they wanted rather than get themselves locked into an agreement that my prevent them from saving money on a better peering deal down the road. Netflix forced the Net Neutrality issue on the ISPs and the ISPs unfortunately won.
No, they were trusting that Cogent would deliver the content. Cogent had peering agreements with ISP's but didn't want to upgrade or pay for when the bandwidth ratio went outside of the agreement. So, Netflix is doing it themselves. They are doing what Yahoo! did years ago. Nothing new here. It has *nothing* to do with net neutrality.
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hey stupid, cogent is not a CDN. they are a tier 1 network
they have a huge national fiber backbone with end points in a lot of locations where you can peer with them to upload your data to send to ISP's with smaller network foot prints. that's the whole point of tier 1, most ISP's are still somewhat regional networks and if you're netflix you can't peer with them unless you have a presence in the same facility.
a CDN company has a server inside the ISP's networks with a lot of storage to hold content and med
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Yes, I know Cogent is a large network provider. I am a Cogent customer. Some articles I have read referred to Cogent's relationship to Netflix as a CDN despite the fact that Cogent does not offer a CDN service. Netflix was building their own CDN using Cogent Here’s How The Comcast & Netflix Deal Is Structured, With Data & Numbers [streamingmedia.com]. I wasn't completely comfortable with the term when I first read it, but it did make sense that Netflix was using Cogent's peering to deliver content to ISP's and to
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If Level 3 has to route the data 1,000 miles but Verizon only has to route it 10 miles, then L
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A SuperPAC to demand neutrality and end corruption (Score:3)
I would expect Lawrence Lessig's MAYDAY SuperPAC could solve this.
As far as I can see, it aims to set up congressmen who will take money out of governing, and I bet it will also wipe out FCC corruption and reset pointers to net neutrality as a consequence of where I expect it will go.
https://mayone.us/ [mayone.us]
http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/... [tumblr.com]
Increase competition. (Score:3)
More regulations will just end up causing more exploitable loopholes. If someone will eat their lunch if they provide crappy service, they'll fix things sharpish.
Throttle this.... (Score:2)
Keep Pushing The Petition and FCC RFC (Score:3)
It's also important to keep the pressure on via the official channels, even if we're skeptical whether it will work. Documenting public sentiment and the government's consideration (or lack thereof) is a critical step on the path to better government. Please sign the net neutrality petition [whitehouse.gov] and reply to the FCC request for comments [fcc.gov], and promote them on your favorite social networks.
The petition is almost up to half the needed signatures in about one week, but the signature rate has been slowing down with the weekend approaching as peoples thoughts turn to beer and barbecue. Please help give it a boost, and/or light it up again Monday or Tuesday, to keep the momentum going during the more active weekdays.
What ....wait....you mean... (Score:3)
I'm shocked... large ISPs (e.g. Comcast) would never deliberately load links to point of saturation in a bid to leverage access to millions of captive eyeballs.
In all seriousness TFA misses the larger point. It is impossible and foolish to even try and legislatively correct distortions arising from provider and content monopolies. The only viable solution is to deny monopoly status and break up large providers into little byte sized bits.
If only you are able to keep everyone from getting too fat then the problem solves itself as normal market forces keep the BS in check.
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It's not even that hard. Government fiber and administrative control of a all passive (all encrypted) cwdm network. Everybody gets a pair and they interconnect all comers at a given rate. Cities are already seeing what happens when you make bandwidth cheap and available. IPv6 pretty much makes this work well. A city network that could act as lifeline internet along with library, school and government access, hell it could make one great p2p network and let businesses interconnect. Multiple ISP's to co
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Nationalize Broadband (Score:2)
I realize that this is not a popular subject and, to be honest, not one I'm 100% in love with either but it would solve a lot of problems -- and keep network neutrality as a top priority while providing for competition.
Simply (or not so simply) nationalize all of the copper, fiber, other wires that make up the internet today including all interconnects - everything needed for the internet to be the internet. Write in a complete HANDS-OFF policy (no piping the internet into the NSA's back room and then pipin
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I'm pretty sure I said jack and shit about Netflix, instant upgrades, or any of the rest of your rant. Don't take my word for it, please actually read what I wrote and then get back to me when your reading comprehension is greater than your ability to punctuate and capitalize sentences correctly. Argumentum ad hominem notwithstanding.
Also, this is not because some "whiny cord cutters are now ranting mad." This is because some very wealthy corporations have bought some nice shiny congressmen and other govern
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you're an idiot. content providers PAYING FOR THEIR DATA has been around for many years. this is how the internet works. CDN's have been sending content for almost 20 years.
netflix is only changing WHO THEY PAY. instead of Level 3 or Cogent it's directly to ISP's since a few now have huge coast to coast backbones.
Of course that's fine. (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, it's completely fine that Netflix now pays Comcast for direct access to their network, rather than continuing to pay Cogent for transit when Cogent couldn't handle the traffic.
Of course if you only read about this on the perpetually outraged SlashDot, you might have been seriously misled regarding the situation. I know I was.
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>Netflix has started paying Comcast and Verizon directly and the FCC is saying that's perfectly fine.
Yes, it's completely fine that Netflix now pays Comcast for direct access to their network, rather than continuing to pay Cogent for transit when Cogent couldn't handle the traffic.
How could they handle it? The destination was on Comcast's network, and Comcast was not providing an adequate connection to accept all that traffic, despite advertising to their own customers that they could download data at a higher rate than was achievable. If you want to deliver data to a Comcast customer, there is no way to do it without Comcast's help.
I'd say that the solution is for people to stop buying broadband from Comcast, but when they're the only provider in your area, or one of two, then you
WTF are "fast lanes" anyway? (Score:2)
CDN's and direct peering have been around for many years. networking best practices say to make as direct a path with less hops as possible.
and yet a few bloggers decided the internet needs to work the opposite way, with large content providers sending their content on longer routes through different networks just to comply with someone's idea of a fair internet
a penny a page (Score:2)
A very long time ago HowStuffWorks had an article I took as filler: http://computer.howstuffworks.... [howstuffworks.com] and even snubbed the thought of paying to view what one wants me to see, but it may be upon us. At which point I'll ignore anybody who request a credit card to participate pretty much what I do now.
Damnedest thing I found this with: a penny a page to view site:\howstuffwork
The \ was an accident and required.
They're not adding "fast lanes" (Score:2)
They're adding "slow lanes", and moving services that don't pay up into the slow lanes.
The whole thing is nothing but greed. The ISPs at both ends are already being paid for the bandwidth, but the ISP at the consumer end wants to be paid for it twice, once by the consumer and once by Netflix.
really? i mean really?!? (Score:2)
Is it really too much to ask to be able to toss the cable and telco suits into a pit of fire, vat of acid, or both?
Re:won't matter for 90% (Score:5, Insightful)
as long as the "slow" lane is "fast enough".
That's the problem - they are not creating any "fast lanes". They are artificially creating slow lanes to get more money. It's like if the state put down continuous rumble strips on all right hand lanes, and charged you extra for the privilege of driving in the left hand lane.
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The ISPs aren't creating "slow lanes." They're simply refusing to widen the freeway until they're paid to do so. It's like a multiple-item auction seller who, in order to increase the auction price, refuses to make more items available in the auction.
Re:won't matter for 90% (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny. Customers pay their ISPs for an advertised bandwidth. Content providers also pay ISPs for advertised bandwidth. Yet, ISPs are still able to turn up the speed if content providers pay them extra. It sounds like ISPs are purposefully not living up to their advertising in order to extort money from people who aren't their customers.
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The ISPs aren't creating "slow lanes." They're simply refusing to widen the freeway until they're paid to do so. It's like a multiple-item auction seller who, in order to increase the auction price, refuses to make more items available in the auction.
The problem is that they actually advertise a certain bandwidth to consumers. If a turnpike charged you $2 to travel some length and issued a guarantee that you'd be able to maintain an average speed of 50mph, and then you found it was congested, they couldn't just point to the speed limit signs and say that it wasn't their problem.
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the slow lanes are a made up of a small minority of people who cut out cable TV and demand netflix to be crystal clear
most cable companies can't even send regular TV in full HD on every channel. even in NYC full HD is only on a few channels. some supposedly HD channels look worse than SD
most people like me don't care. cartoons look fine on netflix and that's good enough for me.
i'll take the current cheap service over a more expensive guaranteed speed that a minority demand. ISP's need to make a higher paid
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most people like me don't care. cartoons look fine on netflix and that's good enough for me.
i'll take the current cheap service over a more expensive guaranteed speed that a minority demand
The way this works is that they will degrade your current cheap service, and call the undegraded service a "fast lane". So you may not be able to watch your cartoons anymore, because your internet service will be slowed down.
Do you find that acceptable?
Re:won't matter for 90% (Score:4, Insightful)
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Netflix bought the fast lane. What do you suppose a would-be Netflix competitor should do, serve streams with 50% packet loss to Verizon customers?
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Forget Netflix; most of the internet providers own their own content stores. The ISPs will just relegate Netflix (and others) to the "slow lane" while the in-house content gets the usable speeds. It would not matter if third-party content providers were to ignore Verizon/Comcast/etc.'s attempt at extortion because they would still suffer from the effects. The customers of the third-party content providers would get the unusable service while VerizonTV gets usable bandwidth. Customers would abandon Netflix i
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What makes you think the fast lane does not exist? Netflix paid to avoid the 50% packet drop tax that Verizon inflicted on their traffic.
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What makes you think the fast lane does not exist?
That it's a non-existent proposal by the FCC. The fast lane, as defined by the FCC, can't exist until the FCC defines it.
Re:won't matter for 90% (Score:4, Interesting)
If the "slow lane" starts affecting my bandwidth, then the ISP is not holding up their end of the bargin. They must provide me uncongested access to all of their interconnects. Once the packet leaves my ISP's network, my ISP has no more control and therefore, cannot be directly responsible anymore. Although, they could be indirectly responsible, like making sure they use a quality transit provider or not using overloaded peers to get cheaper routes.
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They must provide me uncongested access to all of their interconnects.
No they don't. It all depends on your contract. If you have residential internet service they are under no obligation to provide you any service at all. Granted you could dump their service if it were bad enough. If you want guaranteed uncongested access to all their interconnects you'd need that stated in your contract. Those are generally considered "Business lines" and are your classic T1s, T3s, etc... and even those can have issues. But you have your contract to back you up should you have a problem.
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In my case, my residential ISP actively advertises advertises that this is the case, that I get "dedicated" bandwidth to the Internet and I will not get congestion on their networks or to their transit provider, Level 3.
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ok, but if you want guaranteed speeds its going to cost the same as a business line. So $500+ a month. and I'm not kidding, that's what it would cost and the ISP would probably be losing money. They keep those rates as low as possible because the real profit is in services like Managed phones, VOIP, cloud storage, etc... I'm the head DBA for a major telecom's sales force so I know the numbers. Data lines are always sold at a loss. This idea people seem to have that they should be able to get 10mb\s+ of guar
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as long as the "slow" lane is "fast enough".
No - just, no. That gives them the excuse to keep the paying customers at ~30mb/sec or so on a semi-permanent basis, while moneybagged interests could get massive boosts - paid for with government incentive funds. Meanwhile, the rural folks would still be borked back to dial-up or satellite.
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This is equivalent of showing a bad movie on an HD TV and a good movie on an old CRT. The audience will still prefer the good movie, and if you asked them about the picture quality most wouldn't have noticed.
Frozen grossed one billion dollars in first run theatrical release. Blu-Ray and CD audio sales have been strong.
If you can forgive the pun, I think it's long past time the geek let go of the notion that audio and video quality doesn't matter to the home audience.
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And then you create ultrafast lanes!
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we've decided to dispense with civilization (Score:2)