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SBC CEO: Pay up if you want to use our pipes
acousticiris writes "If there were any delusions that Ma Bell Wasn't Back, SBC CEO Edward Witacre has cleared that up in an interview with Business Week Online. When asked about Google, Vonage and other Internet Upstarts he responded in typical Ma Bell Style: 'How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?'."
I mean.. let's get real.
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Don't laugh. Media content providers and software manufacturers are leading the way in shifting the consumer mindset from ownership to licensing. There may soon come a day when someone reading your comment doesn't understand why that's a bad thing.
There are several "backbone" networks. The tier 1 orgs mentioned in the submission (Level3 and Cogent) are just 2 of them. Each has a network that spans a large geographic region and peers with many smaller networks and other tier 1 networks. This network of networks is the collective internet backbone. One could go away completely, and a good bit of the internet would still be around, just the customers on only 1 upstream provider would be on a network to nowhere, and would be unavailable to the world until their ISP got a link to a different tier 1. Though Level3 is playing like a monopoly, they are not, and got reminded of that with the result of their Cogent dispute.
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In the circuit-switched telephony world, carriers exchange CABS (Carrier Access Billing System) records, which are redeemed for cash at the end of each month. For example, you call your Uncle Zed long-distance for one minute and are charged six cents or whatnot by your phone company for the privilage. Well, Zed's phone company will charge CABS to your phone company, and at the end of the month, Zed's phone company will get a check containing a cent or two in payment for completing your call. It's not a lot of money but the volume is very, very high, and a phone co. can make some decent cash if they terminate a lot of calls (think dialups.)
Pretty obvious now where this guy is coming from, eh? Too bad the internet doesn't work like that! The best they will be able to do at this point is to work on screwing up peering agreements in their favor.
IMHO, the big telcos will be the first with their backs up against the wall when the revolution comes.
SBC broadband internet does not have common carrier status , nor does any other internet service provider in the US. Why this common misconception persists is a mystery to me. They are coverd by the term Enhanced Service Provider (ESP), in the telecom world common carrier status carries may burdens and regulations that no ISP wants nor does the fcc want to grant it. so please lets stop making this claim as it is completely false.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Synchronous means that the two bit streams (sender and receiver) are synchronized, so there's no necessity for breaking everything into bytes with start and stop bits.
Symmetric, which is what you were actually refering to (as was the GP) is where one side is capable of transmitting at a faster bit rate than the other side.
Nowadays, most serial modems simulate asynchronous operation at the RS232 port, but transmit data as LAPM packets over a synchronous connection, under V42 and its successors.
Asymmetry in modems predates V34 BTW. There were a myriad of 9600+bps modems made in the mid-eighties where one side was clearly faster than the other, as modem manufacturers adopted various proprietary ways to squeeze more and more bandwidth out of the phone lines.
In terms of ITU standards, the V23 standard (1200bps from content provider to you, 75bps back) was very popular in some parts of Europe, notably Britain where it was the basis for BT's Prestel system. Very suspectable to line noise, but it generally worked, and, being frequency modulated like V21, was cheap to implement with the techologies of the time.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Balkanize: To divide (a region or territory) into small, often hostile units. [From the political division of the Balkans in the early 20th century.]
- The 'offensive, embarrassing, pornographic' clause is there to save them if you start distributing kiddie porn
- The restriction on business/commercial use is to keep you from taking advantage of their system by running a server or sucking up all of their bandwidth with multiple employees
- The wifi thing is to keep you from sharing a connection with all your neighbors that don't want to pay for the service - although if you do it right I don't know how they could detect you running a router.
As far as the NAT, check out http://www.no-ip.com./ I use their free service to ssh into my home machine on a cable network without a static IP. Been doing it for over a year and haven't had any problems yet.Bottom line is the contract, from what you relayed to us, doesn't state that they will filter any sites. It definitely doesn't appear to say that you can only access locations that have a contract with the ISP, which is what SBC is appearantly trying to do.
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What I believe he is referring to is the big folks using existing SBC facilities ( ergo fiber and transmission equipment ) to connect ' their ' customers to the internet backbone via SBC owned systems. Nothing is really changing here except SBC no longer has to provide a ' discount ' to competition to utilize SBC lines.
Initially, that was the agreement in order to allow competition to get their foot in the door without requiring them to build a network of their own before they did. Hehe, it's somewhat expensive to build a network without a LOT of upfront capitol. However, most didn't bother to build any network at all of any kind and simply resold SBC pipes to end customers via a middleman setup. If something broke, you called them, they called SBC. SBC folks worked on and fixed problem, reseller contacts customer telling them problem is fixed, customer is happy. Don't think it stopped there. SBC runs data through other carriers ( Sprint comes to mind ) as well and occasionally Customer A's data goes to reseller B's service that travels SBC pipes which are muxed into really BIG pipes going through Sprint owned systems. It's a never-ending middleman game.
Project Lightspeed is designed to compete with the cable companies. It will, theoretically, provide phone, TV and broadband via fiber straight to the home. Assuming you live in a newer home, neighborhood ( read that expensive home ) that will attract customers that don't mind paying the prices SBC will charge for it. For that reason alone, I don't think it will keep pace with cable since cable pretty much goes everywhere and not just the rich neighborhoods. Of course the big money is providing business with this kind of service and not really the end users like you or I. We stand up and start yelling about something broken and we get ignored. Let a company like Shell Oil or Fingers Furniture or *insert your typical mega-sized business here* and things start happening. Executive level management starts getting involved and general chaos ensues until the problem is resolved. You think the aforementioned businesses have to deal with a thirty level call tree to report a problem ? HA, you keep thinking that
There are not many companies out there that can provide the ' upstarts ' with the dark fiber they would like to have. Most of it is / was owned by they big gorillas in the market, so technically they'll still have to pay for it. Only difference is they will have to provide their own transport equipment to get it from point A to point B.
You are correct about the ' floundering for cash '. Seems like SBC is trying to cut costs in any way / shape / form they can. Once the acquisition of ATT is done, rumors have the IT department taking a ten percent hit across the board. Of course to those who don't make eighty million a year ( like the hanchos ) it makes more sense to trim the excess from the top than it does the bottom, but then, this is an American company and they just don't think like that
Lastly, the rumor mill puts Ed retiring soon. Very soon. Once that happens it is also the rumor that the former CEO of ATT will be the new zookeeper in the gorilla cage. That and the fact that SBC will be adopting the ATT logo / name begs the question: Who really bought whom ?
Look at logmein.com...its not ssh, more like vnc, but it will work in your situation.
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
As far as the NAT, check out http://www.no-ip.com./ I use their free service to ssh into my home machine on a cable network without a static IP. Been doing it for over a year and haven't had any problems yet.
I'm not sure how that's going to help him if he's behind a NAT. While not technically a requirement, a machine behind a NAT will usually have an RFC 1918 IP address (10.x.x.x, 172.16.x.x, or 192.168.x.x). Since these are not routable on the public Internet, a dynamic DNS service isn't going to help him a bit.
I find it interesting reading all the comments about "Well...if they do that then change providers" as if EVERYBODY as multiple broadband providers.
FACT:
The Majority of DSL/Broadband users have one and ONLY one provider available to them. Cable and DSL co-exist ONLY within short distance of CO office facilities. Beyond the DSL length restriction Cable modems are practically (don't start on high latency satelight) the only game in town. If Adelphia decided to block google there is not a damn thing I could do about it besides paying to provision a data line to my house. DSL really is'nt deployed on back roads beyond major metro areas.