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Cable Industry Taking Control of the Net
Tompaine.com has a piece warning of measures that cable internet providers are taking to control their users' experiences online. We've touched on this before, but this issue needs a lot of attention and it has gotten very little from the mainstream press.
If you want to have tiered pricing, you better damn well ensure I get what I pay for. I would give up an extra 10-20 a month for BETTER service, not the SAME service. (I have AT&T broadband right now, and it serves my needs, I game and play around on KaZaA alot, and FTP stuff around between friends). But if I get the same service I get now, thats a Damn Rip Off (tm).
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
this issue needs a lot of attention and it has gotten very little from the mainstream press
Strange isn't it? Since AOL/Time Warner (a major cable internet provider) controls a ton of the mainstream press.
Casual Games/Downloads
I guess its time to switch to DSL, so you can wait for the telecom industry to screw you.
I'm starting to miss the small ISPs that couldn't screw you as bad because there were many more alternatives.
Oh well... long live monopolies!
Hmm.
tiered pricing is a GOOD thing. Not everyone needs a super fat pipe. Allow for free-market competition and let consumers pay for what they want and need. What's wrong with that? Death of the Internet, indeed *snort*.
NO CARRIER
This article is long on rhetoric and short on evidence. I don't deny that its logic makes sense, but it hasn't provided any reason to make me believe it.
I'll express an unpopular opinion here: ultimately, bandwidth will have to be metered. Bandwidth is a commodity (I think it was the commoditization of bandwidth that is the part of the reason for the telecom collapse) like water or electricity: cheap, but not infinite. The problem, of course, is that if bandwidth is allowed to be monopolized like electricity and telephone service are, prices will be increased far above their levels in a competitive environment. I would like to think the FCC and other government agencies would follow such a policy, but I have no real confidence in it.
He moved to Texas, so there was no real resolution.
I noticed the other day when I fired up Gnutella to grab a Buffy episode I missed that I was disconnected from SBC DSL (aka PacBell DSL), and couldn't connect for about 15 minutes. It's the second time that's happened. I don't use Gnutella except for maybe once a month, and probably haven't used it in the past three months or longer, so I don't know if it's really SBC, or when they started doing it.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
The real question is what the volume pricing should look like. A 5GB limit is too low--if they charge that, they will likely lose lots of customers. Something that would make more sense to me would be:
We're talking about two entirely different things here:
1) Consumer broadband access
2) Hosting
Sure, in theory it would be great if those were the same thing and the little guy or gal could serve a web site, distribute files or relay mail through a box connected to the cable modem. In real life, 'bandwidth hogs' (scare quotes from the article, not from me) pay the same as the web browsers and email readers while indulging their warezing or the urge to run every last service that shipped with Red Hat.
I have a slow, free dial-up connection at home. How do I manage a web site? I pay $10CDN/month for web hosting, including CGI, PHP, MySQL and anonymous FTP, plus another $10US/year for a domain name.
If you want to reach an audience, or just play webmaster, paying for hosting is far cheaper and more effective than screwing around with cable modems. If you just want to warez, or just generally be a jackass, your complaining is irrelevant to the article's claims of corporate censorship.
(By the way, anyone else wonder where TomPaine.com gets so much money to run those expensive ads (NYT op-ed page!) that are witless enough to be rejected from a college newspaper? Bill Moyers nepotises a huge pile of foundation funding to TomPaine.com, run by his son John. The American Prospect is going to go under so we can get more trash like this.)
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
This has been talked about and talked about and talked about to death. The mainstream media will never cover this, because there's nothing for them to cover. Anyone who cares about this kind of stuff already knows about this. They keep up on the technology, and likely come by here every so often.
The sky isn't falling. This won't kill the Internet, it will just make it more responsible, for once. Bandwidth isn't an unlimited resource. DEAL WITH IT. If you don't like it, start your own ISP and try to give everyone 2Mbit unrestricted connections, reliably, for $40/month. You won't be able to do it. Get all the venture capital funding you ask for and you still won't be able to do it. Look what happened to Excite@Home. If stuff like this ever happens, it'll be a blessing to networks everywhere. Maybe people will actually take some responsibility and secure their machines when their bandwidth is all used up 'cause someone zombified their machines and used them in a DDoS attack, or the next Internet worm uses it all up. That would make the neighborhood a whole lot safer, let me tell you.
People claim that restricting bandwidth in this manner will kill off the Internet economy. Bah, I say. It will save the internet economy. It will make people realize that this stuff costs something. It will make them at least be aware of how they use it. If they want to use it alot, they're going to have to pay for the privilidge. If they don't want to use it alot, they're going to be able to pay less, to only use it when they need to.
I'm all for it. Of course this is all hot air until the cable companies really crack down on it, so I guess let the good times roll as long as they can. That will only make the hangover longer I suppose. I did fine at 56K, I can do it again. No big.
Exactamundo.
In the Texas Panhandle, it's flat. Really, really flat. It's so flat, that on a clear day, you can look off at the horizon and see all 360 degress of it... faded blue depending on the humidity, but there nonetheless.
Now, what do you need for a good wireless connection? A flat, unobstructed line-of-sight to an antenna or a repeater.
Heh... by sticking atennas and repeaters on top of granaries, water towers, and high buildings, wireless ISPs in Amarillo and the surrounds are getting *amazing* distances with their wireless shots. You can drive 30-40 miles away and still get a good clean connection via a pingle-can antenna. Thusly, Wireless is taking off in a big way here. A good number of the people I work with are already using wireless as their main form of bandwidth and out and out refuse to go back to cable. Most everyone else is actively considering switching. Those who are considering other forms of broadband bandwidth are going to DSL and not cable.
Cable companies and media conglomerates are screaming and making a big fucking deal out of a non-existant problem in the name of gelaning control. What it boils down to is that the technology is changing too rapidly for them to effectively impliment any kind of contols. Sure, they can nail some of the areas in the U.S. where it's impossible to get DSL or wireless, but they can't go everywhere. If my understanding is correct, DSL is getting cheaper and cheaper, and wireless is getting better and better. Cable is a flash in the pan. A bright flash, but a flash in the pan nonetheless.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
eat away at your limit? Just think of how much you would hate spam then...
The main issue is the ability of the end user to get access to the backbones of the Net.
When the ability to hook up is a monopoly (like cable, where no 3rd party company is permitted to provide access over the cable company's coax), there is no competition incentive. All these "problematic" uses for the Net get banned, and there's no where else to go.
The situation is not much better with DSL, since the 3rd party providers are at the mercy of the Bells, and are pretty limited to what they can provide because of it.
The air, however, isn't owned by anyone (regulated, yes, but not property). If technology can allow for fast, reliable, two-way Net access through airspace, this removes the telco & cable companies' ability to ignore these undesirable Net services. If they start to lose too many subscribers to over-the-air providers, they will have to back off on the restrictions.
Note that the tone of the article was not an issue of cost: it was an issue of what you are *allowed* to do on the Net *regardless* of cost. If the telcos and cable providers are allowed to continue, they simply will stop permitting P2P usage on their lines, with no option to turn it on (they would rather kill high-bandwidth usage than bother to administer its usage).
End result: if we have other high-speed options, Net access will cost more (as it likely should), but at least we will still have the freedom to do as we wish. But if we do not get other options (through restrictive regulations, likely at the request of the copyright industries), then the article is bang-on.
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
I don't think there's as much to worry about as this article indicates. In a free market, tiered plans that are overpriced and overly restricted will ultimately fail to competition. People in small markets might be hurt for a little while until competition moves in, but it is only a matter of time.
There are actually two providers here in Columbus now that have tiered plans but they're both based on throughput, not total monthly bandwidth used. In fact, it's actually pretty sweet. One of the companies offers 150kbs down and 75kbs up for $4.95 per month. Their "power user" package is 1.5mbit down and 300k up for $15.95. One of my friends is going to try it out for a month or two and compare it to roadrunner. I guarantee if it's as good as it sounds, half my office will be switching within a month.
It's actually tempting to grab the lower tiered service and adjust to the slower speed just for the price savings. $4.95 is stupid cheap for broadband internet acess.
Imagine that in a small community (eg. a college) you could P2P over the air with UWB, without the need to involve any other company network.
Transmission should be encrypted and the bandwidth is virtually unlimited...
Who needs the cable companies, let's turn our computer into routers...
...richie - It is a good day to code.
I think if a network is worried about your peak usage rather than total usage they should put a lower threshold on your bandwidth. If you are really only paying for half the bandwidth you are promised then that has to be some sort of fraud. They shouldn't be able to advertise unlimited connections when they really aren't unlimited.
I have no problem with a company deciding to cap connections in one way or another, but at least be honest in your advertising and mention that you are capped.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
I use a small local ISP here in Canada that charges me $25 Canadian a month for 100 hours dial up. We are soon to go wireless which will cost $40 Canadian a month for unlimited bandwidth. The other day when they found out that I was running an international news site updated daily at (http://www.newsfromtheedge.org) as a public service/hobby, they got me the registered domain name and hosted my site for almost nothing in aid of what I was doing. Likely I would have gotten this gift from Telus, Bell, AT&T or Rogers. Yeah. Likely. Support your small, independent ISP. They're the only thing that will save us.
I've been thinking about this for awhile actually. Although wireless would be an option, it would probably be better to setup the entire complex in the following configuration:
:P:P
1)Main T-x or even OC-x connection to server room with webserver, mail server, etc.
2)From server room, depending on number of seperate physical buildings, Gigabit or Fiber connections to sub-servers/routers in the diffrent buildings
3)From building wire rack, 100Base-T wires going to every unit, possibly every room
That would make a complete network/ISP for an apartment complex, and would enable it to use the service to turn an additional profit (beyond the installation of the lines and cost of servers etc). Not to mention being convienent for the people living there. Add approx. $20-40/mth to the rent, enable unlimited bandwidth, throw in on-site technical support for computer issues....I don't know many people that wouldn't jump on this.
The problem with running a wireless network is:
1)Unsecure unless you have someone that knows what their doing
2)Expensive for new tenents (having to buy a wireless network card, or if the complex rents them to tenents, replacing stolen ones)
3)Slower than 100Base-T, or possibly even Gigabit
4)Problems with wireless during storms/possible electical wire interferance (depending on age of complex)
If anyone knows a complex that is interested, tell them to get ahold of me!
--CypherDragon
Since then, there's been some loose talk about the "tragedy of the commons" from people who know a little economics but not much network design. These people usually seem to have a bias in favor of markets as a solution to a wide range of problems. Their arguments are not compelling.
Sometimes a market isn't the solution. The feedback loops implicit in a pricing model are usually far too slow to regulate a datagram network without introducing instability. Realize that markets are control systems, and are subject to the stability problems of control systems. Most economists don't get this. Classical economics assumes that if there's an equilibrium point, the system will stabilize at or near it. That's not true; all you're really guaranteed is that if it oscillates, the oscillations will pass through the equilibrium point now and then.
In addition, a pricing system itself imposes costs. In telephony, billing now costs more than transmission. Billing, setup, and support typically cost an ISP more than their backbone bandwidth. There's so much underutilized fibre installed now that backbone bandwidth just isn't a problem.
Most of this talk is an attempt to justify a price increase by an incumbent monopoly.