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Will Providers Provide Equally?
theodp writes "Imagine the chaos if your power company could take money from Sony so that its appliances got a higher quality of juice - and thus worked a tad better - than those of Mitsubishi. The power system wasn't built that way, but ISPs have that very capability. It may seem like a dodgy competitive tactic, but Yankee Group analysts envision that broadband network providers could give precedence to their own revenue-generating services, possibly leading to the demise of the biggest VoIP player today, Vonage."
It seems to me that all one would have to do to get around this is to use SSL. ISPs wouldn't be able to lower the priority of such communications without affecting many other applications, such as VPNs. They could still do it based on IP, but not if the providers of a service used some large provider like Akamai.
Anyway, regardless of whether it could be circumvented, and at what cost, the implication is still a further push away from the original spirit of the internet towards a network that is solely a means of extracting as much revenue from consumers as possible. I just wish it were more realisitc to create an ad-hoc network with all my friends...and their friends, etc. I think some day that is what the tech community will be forced to turn to someday, in order to retain the usability we have come to cherish.
Of couse keeping this theoretical peer network free and uncommercial would be very tough, if it got popular. Call me paranoid, but I'm looking into affordable methods of connecting my friends directly together, using wireless technology and encryption.
Encryption! and P2P!
Decentralise everything, encrypt everything. Your ISP will just see random packets going to random IPs with random data inside them - distributed filesharing, voip etc etc and on the plus side the pigs cant track you either.
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They'll never do this. As much money is dangled in front of them, there's a bigger trap door.
Right now, ISPs stay out of the RIAA/MPAA lawsuit fights because they are common carriers. The moment they stop being able to claim that by giving disadvantages to those who they choose to spite, the RIAA/MPAA will demand that the P2P client of the week be spited as well...
That's just too much of a headache for them. They don't want to become liable for their user's usage. They'd rather that users keep using without them being bothered. They're not going to open themselves up to such exposure.
Of course, this is the Yankee Group we're talking about, so logical analysis is not to be expected. This is the same bunch of boneheads that has Didio doing their "analysis" of the SCO lawsuits.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
It seems like everything these days is self serving and dishonest.
So sad, so sad.
Would be to declare ISP (and the internet) as an 'essential service' or utility. And as such the ISP would have rules governing thier behavior, including anti-trust laws.
Wouldn't such tactic actually drive customers away?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
...companies are looking for a profit, not to make you there best friend. As long as they can keep the profits coming, they could care less what you think of them.
Unless Vonage pays fees to the network provider, there is no reason the operator should not make the service a lower priority on the network.
Oh yeah, no reason at all -- except that if they do that, it's not the internet any more. And if they call themselves "internet providers," they're lying.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Apart from poor bandwiths such pseudo "g" cards work only with propietary windows drivers. I tried using some Br chipset cards with linux and they did not work! It was the early days when g just came out.
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The idea is not that they lower the priority on the packets to their competitors, but that the raise the priority on packets to their own services. This has a slight effect by lowering priority to everything not theirs, but the point is that their stuff would work top-notch on their own networks, while competitors wouldn't get such a boost.
If you used encryption and decentralization, it doesn't help you, because they're giving their stuff a boost, not directly giving other stuff a kick in the teeth.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
As time passes, I'm thinking about just switching to commercial DSL service. Current broadband offerings for the most part are targeted to the uneducated masses, and are cheap for that reason. My ISP had the nerve to tell me that my connection was "For entertainment purposes only" when I asked why the windows file sharing port was blocked (I have a static IP and I needed to share some files with some non-Mac friends of mine). So instead of bitching, the easier solution seems to be to pay for quality. The same applies to every other consumer product out there.
How is this any different than mega supermarkets that give shelf space preference to various brands with respect to location and quantity?
I choose to use a small ISP. They have their own problems, but this kind of behaviour isn't one of them. I can almost do what the hell I like with my connection and it's only their peer connections and BGP issues that ever screw me up. I have a choice of other ISPs too who also don't behave like this. Thank goodness for competition!
Here in Southeastern Virginia / Hampton Roads Cox run's a portal that competes with the local paper's portal. Cox has a captive audience, setting the homepage of all the cable modem customers to their local portal.
It has always been a fight for the homepage. The local paper used to have an ISP tied to it (infi.net) that ran dialup and hosting services for 100+ newspapers across the country (infi.net was owned by Landmark, Gannet and Knight-Ridder). Supposidly the big push from the papers wasn't that the ISP functions were really profitable, they just wanted their content on the homepage.
It is a bit monopolistic in a way, but I think everyone understands. More viewers, the more you can charge for banner ads.
The downside is none of the community sites are really innovative. In the case of Cox's, it is identical to every market they are in. Cookie cutter crap.
AOL probably has the biggest advantage, as normal netziens cannot access the content on their network. This is a major selling point for some of the AOL subscribers, even.
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
I'm thinking before too long, ISPs will try to force one too many onerous terms and people will respond by dropping their ISPs and freeing their wireless hubs forming a decentralized network. This will be the real Internet2.
Vonage's device they send you doesn't adjust the TOS value in the IP packet. I checked with a hub and ethereal. I have the Cisco device, newer customers are getting the Motorola. Don't know about that.
So, it's at the class of service level of everything else. Which doesn't have any packet loss and has low latency. In order to give themselves competitive advantage, Comcast could only trust the TOS and DSCP values in VOIP flows coming from their equipment, but the ENTIRE CONCEPT OF QOS is predicated on the idea of congestion!
Now, if they deliberately threw competing VOIP flows into a low queue and INDUCED loss, well - that's actionable as anti-competitive behavior. And in the standard IANAL disclaimer, I have no idea what the remedies available are.
Also, as another posted that got modded up pointed out, Vonage could use VPN or otherwise mask the RTSP stream. But that's silly. It's also counter productive long term.
I think the parent article is kind of a troll to get legislation by the FCC and others regarding QOS. It's a tactic to cause dissention because of the pass the FCC took on regulating companies like Vonage.
You're damn right they will. They've already started blocking port 25 outbound (one thing that I might be okay with) along with a variety of inbound ports. They've taken complaints again and again. They respond with a resounding "We don't care."
And why should they? Joe Schmoe customer doesn't care. He doesn't know if it's his ISP that broke it or the client or somebody else. If he calls someone for support, it's almost certainly not going to be his ISP. After all, he's using someone elses services. His VoIP connection is slow? Why would he blame his ISP? Everything else is fast.
Will they lose a few customers (i.e. the Slashdot crowd)? Yes, but they don't care. Our money isn't worth that much to them. And since we're the only crowd opposed, there's not enough business to start-up competitive ISPs.
"Imagine the chaos if your power company could take money from Sony so that its appliances got a higher quality of juice - and thus worked a tad better - than those of Mitsubishi"
Actually, our local utility, BC Hydro does this already. They have lower rate schedules if you are a customer willing to be interruptible during peak demand. So, some commercial and industrial customers here do indeed have a "higher quality of juice" than others.
Slashdot is entertaining like pro wrestling is entertaining
What is likely is that the cable companies phone service will work better anyways.
While their phone service is going to be IP based, it isn't going to be Internet based.
I live in an area where it is being beta tested, and I understand they are using an ATA with an integrated cable modem that installs at the phone box. This would allow them to tie into your wiring, provide real 911 service (the box isn't portable enought that you are likely to take it anywhere) etc.. It will use a diferent private addressing scheem and QOS end to end on their own gateway. Chances are it will use bandwith allocated seperately from the actual cable modems, so there should be no impact to other services such as Vonage or Broadvoice.
For them not to do this would be crazy. They are going to be trying to take on the Bells, and while Vonage is great for geeks, I can cause it to break up with heavy file transfers.
On the other side, the cable companies service which is currently being advertised is somewhere well in between the Vonage and SBC pricing.
You really belief this wouldn't happen. Well guess what, it already happens. In the Netherlands we had a case where an ISP didn't want to stream the data they got from a radio station. So they blocked it. They wanted to get paid. Their argument was that the data would take up too much bandwidth. Fact is that the internet business model is build on the fact that everybody pays his end of the network. A simple peering would have helped them alot.
Use Adsense for Charity
that Da ISH is built from, and there will be more classifications. you want higher priority, you pay more. there are multiple names for service priority, MPLS on ethernet, CBR/VBR/VBRnt on ATM, service levels on frame relay if a carrier implements them -- but it's real.
ISPs buy what they want, and if it's not a dedicated point-to-point circuit, they are usually buying traffic-interruptable service like VBRnt or frame. remember, the Internet is best-attempt by definition already, and YOUR software has to deal with anything other than sequential packets sent at a constant rate of speed. you don't like that, stay on POTS, or upgrade your software.
if you want PRIORITY service, with MPLS on the switching/routing end and higher classes of service like CBR availiable for a sub-circuit of an ISP's T3 to an upline, for instance, that can become possible quite easily. it gets more complicated if you want it beyond an ISP's reach, but it can be done sometime as soon as agreements are reached to allow it.
the Bells are offering or tarriffing to offer such priority VoIP services now. for the Internet to offer it, you will need to have a protocol approved by IETF for it. propose or lobby against over there.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
1000ms all by itself would effectively kill most use of VoIP, as the noticable delays for some reason causes really annoying conversations... you don't know whether to start respond to what the other person just said, or whether they're going to follow it up with something else, causing you to accidentally start talking over them. Latency is so important to voice calls that the International Telecommunications Union recommends latency no greater than 150ms.
So is this just my conspiracy theory that T-Mobile GPRS provides way worse than 150ms for data, while providing better than 150ms latency for the voice side of things?
Somebody, sometime, is going to offer an ISP a boatload of money to do this, and the ISP is going to calculate that the probable cost of interfering in connection usage (P2P monitoring or whatever it is) is dwarfed by the amount of revenue they're getting for a sweetheart deal like this.
If the ISP is a major nationwide network, the monitoring could be a huge burden, but the cash rewards could be just as huge.
At least it'll create a few hundred IT jobs.
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
There one good thing about the idea to have the FCC regulate VoIP communications, it would be a federal offense for Comcast to reduce the quality of their service or to restrict access. I am sure that Anti-Trust legislation would apply as well.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
That said, I find it generally unlikely that ISPs would do any type of overt targeted network shaping. They make their money by moving packets, and for more and more contracts these days, the more packets you move the more money you make.
The benefit of ISPs getting into the VOIP, streaming, and other services where network properties matter is that those are exactly the kind of people who can optimize their networks to give the customer the best experience. ISPs want to displace Vonage because Vonage isn't their customer, but they have to deal with all the network issues generated by customers that use Vonage. It is cheaper to offer an optimized solution designed and tested to work beautifully on your network for free or nearly free than to support the problems caused when people use whatever random VOIP software suits their fancy.
Not all networks are created equal, and this really starts to become apparent when using QoS sensitive services. It is cheaper and generally gives better results for the ISP to integrate those services vertically, which ultimately will be a win for the customer.
The answer is easy. Power companies are monopolies. I don't have a choice with whom I do business. The reality is that you only get a choice of one power company, one local telephone service, and one local cable company, simply because there is only one set of lines coming into your home.
Internet connections, at least in the US, or different. You have an extensive choice of providers. I live in a metropolitan area, and I have a choice of about two dozen providers. A friend who lives in a rural agricultural area still has a choice of four providers, two of which are high speed. You might have to pay a tiny surcharge to your local telco monopoly, but the choice is there.
A provider that gives one person preferential treatment over another for the same fees is going to be at a competitive disadvantage.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Currently, the major backbone providers like Sprint et al are already providing QOS for VOIP services currently used by major corporations (i.e. Cisco) to communicate between offices. This hasn't propogated down to the ISP level yet but there's no reason it couldn't.
Also, at the ISP level, Speakeasy already has a package that preferentially routes online game packets, providing better performance for subscribers. In fact Speakeasy toutes itself as the "gamer's ISP".
I browse Slashdot at +3, Funny
Apparently, comcast has been doing some Very Nasty Stuff with vonage, such as not resolving DNS addresses to vonage. A vonage tech commented that it looks like the only way this is going to get solved is through the courts.
This has been an ongoing issue since comcast entered the voip market.
Any vonage (or comcast) moles want to comment?
As an employee at an University that is restriction Internet through-put for P2P protocols, I would like to point out that such restrictions are only desirable when resources are tight. The restriction was placed because the cost of adding another T3 to the Internet was prohibitive in comparison of the cost involved in doing Quality of Service. For the University's connection to I2, the reverse is true. The cost of doing QoS on a gigabit connection is prohibitive and it is desirable to just allow the resource utilitization to more "naturally" handle itself.
One thing that I believe would help third party companies provide several interesting services (pay-per-view over IP, party-line VoIP, etc.) would be multicast. It seems to me that there is a conflict of interest with most Cable/DSL providers in regards to providing multicast support on their networks since it benefits external companies more than themselves.
Tm
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IF history is any guide, we will see the cable companies totally abuse this until Uncle Sam is forced to make them play nice (after first letting them suck us dry in exchange for superior campaign contributions). Can anyone imagine Charles Dolan (Cablevision Systems) NOT taking advantage of something like this. Bon Vonage!
No...it's okay...I wasn't using my Civil Liberties anyway
I've noticed some interesting things about my access:
Conspiracy!
Why would we expect a cable companies VOIP be any different?
Declaring a service as 'essential' or 'utility' tends to lead to a local (and in the case of AT&T national) monopoly. That will only remove the likely-hood of competing ISPs for certain areas, assuming you could even craft a scenario where one ISP could be declared a utility. Do you use a dial-up, dsl, cable based, or fiber optic only as a basis for the service? Nor does this offer any sort of grantee that you prevent utility from favoring their own products, in fact you encourage the opposite by way of bundling.
Nor does the government have to declare and ISP a utility for it to regulate it, they already regulate ISPs. The 'simple' step is to make it illegal for an ISP to use packet shaping or throttling ports; however, that isnt so simple when you know ISPs need to be able to control the traffic to certain ports.
Most ISPs would not qualify as common carriers. Part of being a common carrier is offering a service to the public in a non-discriminatory manner. That means that you can't say "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone". If the New Hitler Youth for Nuking Gay Whales orders service, you have to give it to them. You can't disconnect them for being controversial, as long as they pay their bills and do not violate the law.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Either the FCC or the courts have to define the internet aspect of cable companies as common carriers.
Currently phone companies are defined as such, and they have to carry all calls. They cannot exclude fax transmission, modem connections, or any voice connections. They must carry them all.
Current the ISP side of the cable industry is NOT defined in that way. They have every legal right to block content.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
All the major carriers are moving towards this model. The new requirements coming out of the DSL forum require equipment makers have the ability to do all kinds of fancy traffic shaping and quality of service.
The company I work for makes equipment that does this. We set it up so an ISP can create a portal where a subscriber can select services and the network will automatically adjust the shaping and priority settings so the subscriber gets that service while allowing the provider to charge for it.
If Jane Doe wants to watch a certain movie, our box will guarantee the bandwidth between the video server and her DSL line while still limiting other traffic to the normal rates. Or if John Smith wants to download a huge ISO and doesn't want to wait, he can click to up his bandwidth to download it and lower it back down when he's done and gets charged extra for the amount of time he has the higher bandwidth.
Anyone can provide a pipe, but it's not real profitable for the providers. They want to make money off of things like pay-per-view or other special services.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.