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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?'."
Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?
Because the customer is paying for them there pipes. Last time I checked, yip billed yesterday, I paid for my phone line, cable TV with broad band and if you want to include the cell phone, that is mildly broadband, then that too. Now Polyester Ed, if you are paying for my bills then you can say what can and can't go over the line; you want to regulate the neighbors line then you'll have to pay for that one too. I bet Google has some kind of leased line also but I doubt you can pickup their bill though; you'll have to ask them as I think they have some kind of business model or some other buzz word that will confuse you.
Now I believe Poly Ed is talking about the backbone network infrastructure that becomes a little shady. Does it make sense to pay 7 cents a minute to cross these main backbone lines? I wouldn't push a $100 billion gorilla too far; you may find that they'll replace your lines with something they own and then you'll be paying them.
What am I supposed to be outraged about? Broadband providers have never, as far as I can recall, provided bandwidth free of charge to their customers; nor would I expect them to. What am I missing here?
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
You installed these pipes while you were part of a regulated monopoly, using public right of ways.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
... why google has been buying tons of dark fiber in the past couple of years.
One of these days, this jerk^W typical CEO will realize -- too late -- that he has painted his company in a corner with that type of statement. By then, it will be too late to save SBC, but not too late to grant himself a huge, last-minute bonus.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
This sort of mindset is exactly why Google is dabbling in setting up WiFi networks and why Microsoft has been investing in community mesh networks. They need a credible alternative to DSL & Cabel internet access, or the providers of last mile connectivity will start looking for a share of revenue of everyone who delivers services over IP for access to "their customers" That's right, they want to charge you for the pipe on one end, and turn around and charge the people you are connecting to, on a per transaction basis, if at all possible.
Don't think they aren't determined to find a way to do it.
What's needed is enough competition to make it impossible for them, and that is going to take more than a choice between the cable company and the phone company, even better if some of that competition has ways of turning a profit beyond simply gouging for connectivity.
100% agreed. Google is not transmitting on XYZ's pipes on their own initiative...the customers are and they are paying for this. They are asking google to send them information - something they ask of ANY website out there. That's how the internet works.
I hope ma bell actually tries to do this "Sorry you cannot access GOogle because they will not pay us a fee"...then the customer leaves the DSL company for the cable company. Also, this guy doesn't realize that internet transmissions piggy back all the time...so someone could make the same argument against this baby bell. "Yea one of your customers wanted to access XYZ website and because of this their ip route passed through our pipes...pay up or your customers won't get access".
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
He may think he'd like that, but he's wrong.
If he starts regulating the content of data on his wires, he loses common carrier status. Now he becomes liable for every snuff/rape/bestiality site that crosses his wires in the US. He's liable for every pipe bomb HOWTO, every warez download, every mp3 stream, every alt.bin.illegal.stuff post, every pedophile in an IRC channel, et cetera, et cetera.
At that point, SBC either goes out of business or spends truly profligate amounts of money - even in comparison to current business spending on Capitol Hill - to try and get common carrier redefined.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
$0.25/min long distance, and if you didn't like it, you could write a letter - cause Ma Bell owned the system. Telephones? Oh, no, you couldn't buy them, they could only be leased from Ma Bell on a monthly basis.
There was a reason that Bell was broken up. It seems that everyone at the FCC was born after that decision, and only feels pity for the poor, destitute baby bells taht just can't compete as little guys. And they're so darned cute, wouldn't it be great if they were just one big company. Think of the efficency! Phone rates could be cut in half and in half again, if they just weren't made to compete with one another. *shakes head*
The whole separation of infrastructure from service is a good thing, in general, for prices (California's f*cked up electrical system notwithstanding). If you let one company control the lines and the service, all you'll get is lousy service and high prices.
This is where we're headed, and taking your business "elsewhere" won't mean much when most of the system ends op owned by one company, whether through buy-outs or mergers.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
He can try to charge for VOIP, but as soon as he starts, thats when more innovation will go into beating his detection methods. Such as encrypting the call, tunneling through other protocols, etc. I understand that VOIP is very latency sensitive, and every layer we put on top of it could possibly lower the quality of the call, but I still believe we can achieve better quality than cell-phone while encrypting the information. The real question will be, will the US Government support him in his desire to charge. I guess it will be interesting to see, hopefully other companies like Vonage will step in and work against him.
'I hope ma bell actually tries to do this "Sorry you cannot access GOogle because they will not pay us a fee"...then the customer leaves the DSL company for the cable company.'
And what of the rumors (confirmed or not?) that Google has been buying up scads of dark fiber? Does this guy really want Google to decide to become a common carrier and eat his lunch too? What are they putting in the water on the executive floor these days?
I give any company who tries to deny users access to internet services because the content providers won't pay them about 6-12 months to live. They need to come to grips with reality that information transmission has become a utility, and that people mostly just want to buy packets in and packets out. Denying the transmission of information when that's your only product is pretty damn stupid. If SBC tries this, I will buy puts on SBC so fast I'll make their heads swim.
Well, not really, 'cause I'm a little fish, but you get my meaning. :-)
From http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/guides/baitads-gd.htm:
"Sec. 238.0 Bait advertising defined.1
Bait advertising is an alluring but insincere offer to sell a product or service which the advertiser in truth does not intend or want to sell. Its purpose is to switch consumers from buying the advertised merchandise, in order to sell something else, usually at a higher price or on a basis more advantageous to the advertiser. The primary aim of a bait advertisement is to obtain leads as to persons interested in buying merchandise of the type so advertised.
Sec. 238.1 Bait advertisement.
No advertisement containing an offer to sell a product should be published when the offer is not a bona fide effort to sell the advertised product. [Guide 1]
Sec. 238.2 Initial offer.
(a) No statement or illustration should be used in any advertisement which creates a false impression of the grade, quality, make, value, currency of model, size, color, usability, or origin of the product offered, or which may otherwise misrepresent the product in such a manner that later, on disclosure of the true facts, the purchaser may be switched from the advertised product to another.
(b) Even though the true facts are subsequently made known to the buyer, the law is violated if the first contact or interview is secured by deception."
If an ISP (as in P stands for Provider), they can't filter/block access to anything and still sell 'Internet Service.' To do so means they become a Publisher, since they're controlling what you can access (I think AOL fits into this role in certain aspects), and that's a bundle of liability to make many companies tread lightly. If I buy service from a company offering 'Internet' access, I have a reasonable expectation that any IP based technology will work with it, be it software I run on my computer, or an off the shelf consumer device designed to work with the Internet. Companies providing bundled services need to step lightly on this subject. Selling me 'Internet' access, blocking VOIP transit, and offering a comparable VOIP service (for a fee, of course), is asking for trouble.
- billn
1. The majority of lawmakers utilize the internet at home. Many of whom pay attention to the bills they pay at home, even if they are willing to spend 40k on a toilet seat at the office. Most adults do not allow their child to *call* overseas, but would think nothing about allowing them to visit an overseas website. If there were suddenly surcharges for every node hit along the way, the internets usefulness for the majority would suddenly decrease dramatically.
2. The US is not the only country that provides access to (or content on) the internet. Lobbying the US govt. for the right to bill website owners will not fly. If the EEU says "No, we don't agree", what would the US government do in retaliation? Fortunately, congress does not have the power to legislate communication billing methods for the globe.
3. Connection fees are already paid by parties at each end of any transmission. So, technically, there is already a double billing going on. What they are looking for is a third (and fourth and fifth...) helping.
4. Monopolies are illegal in the US (and Canada, and probably most of the other big trade countries. Haven't checked tho). "Ma Bell" will never again be a monopoly. The law isn't the only reason, either. People are more informed today about the impact that monopolies have on prices and availability of service. We expect choice, and will not tolerate a single vendor option.
They charge clients $$ for access to the internet, then want to charge the internet for access to their clients.
Yes, this is what the middleman always tries to do, in the case of communications services that is why we impose government regulation, which in turn creates a whole new set of middlemen but this time with guns.
Really what this fucker, Edward Witacre, is saying that his customers need to pay him twice for access to other people's content which his customers themselves go out and request. If he was talking about Spammers only, then that might be an acceptable point, but he wouldn't exaclty be looking out for his customers if he took kickbacks from spammers. So , really we are talking about content that his customers want and are already paying the content providers to receive. And apparently he is charging those customers enough money to make a profit already, so his "need" to charge the other end of the communciation to be able to respond to his customers requests is purely based upon greed not neccesity or any reasonable notion of equity and fairness.
Also, we should beware QoS (Quality of Service), it is the ISPs way of charging for differentiation of services. If the ISPs have their way they will delay packets that haven't paid a QoS tax. Far from being a way of providing better service to those that need it, it is a way of getting those that need lower latency (and can "afford" it) to pay more. So, those that have money (businesses, rich individuals) will get screwed by having to pay more for Internet Access and those that are paying less will get screwed when their packets are queued up for whatever arbitrary amount of time will squeeze the most money out of people. QoS will kill the Internet as a flexible communications platform. QoS is the DRM of networking.
... with added noise...
Altering the contents of the packets -- "adding noise" -- is illegal. That constitutes a wire-tap.
And singling out VoIP traffic for specific losy traffic shaping is grounds to lose common carrier status. It's intentional action against very specific traffic for a competetive advantage. (I'm sure there are lawyers already drooling in anticipation of class action suits.)
(Btw, I recall one ISP being wacked over the head for doing this sort of shit. Mebtel in Mebane, NC.)
And, pray tell, what are the consumers paying for? What in the world is wrong with bailing from them as your ISP if they start blocking the services you want/need? What do you need them for if you can't Google?
And another thing, who says Google is getting their pipes for free? I'm sure they pay a kings ransom for their leased lines.
So... neither the consumer nor Google is getting anything from SBC for free. So I'm staying right here on my high horse thank you. This CEO is just trying to generate revenue streams out of thin air. If he implements that particular scheme, then if I were a customer (which I am not), I would walk away. Let's see how long his consumer internet services revenues last then...
I don't hate SBC, I just think this line of thought for generating revenue is a really bad idea--as his level and on up...
Because they didn't offer that.
Yes they did.
They would be happy to if you're prepared to pay what that costs.
No they're not.
For 19.95 a month, you get filtered network connections, no ability to run a server dynamic IP addresses, and capped bandwidth.
No, for 26.95 a month, I get a filtered email port (to stop zombies), a dynamic IP address (but nothing DDNS can't fix), and unlimited access (but only 1.5Mbps throughput). There's no limitation on hosting a server, no monthly data transfer cap, and no bullcrap from SBC. And yes, this is SBC DSL. I've had it since before the Yahoo! addition, and I never agreed to their amended ToS, with good reason. Look at what I can do without it!
For 99.95 a month you get static ip's, no filters, and the ability to run anything you want.
Actually, I believe that plan costs 64.95 a month.
SBC delivers exactly what you contracted for.
Yup. I "renewed" that contract rather than agreeing to new ToS, too. And they allowed it. And they cut my monthly price in half, too.
You want cheap, you get cheap, you want full pipes, you PAY for full pipes. DUH. That copper costs money, the electricity to run the system, the techs in the trucks, the poles, etc etc etc all cost money.
I want cheap AND full pipes. And I get it. You just have to push them a bit. Oh, and all but the recurring costs of business were subsidized by my parents' tax dollars (I was only about 3 when Ma Bell got severed), so that argument can get stuffed. And even now they receive some major kickbacks, so that argument can get stuffed into the indefinite future, too. "DUH."
To get down to the real issue here, SBC is getting paid exactly the amount they're asking for, and their CEO is a greedy asshat and won't cool it with the retarded "we're entitled because we're the victim boo hoo" rhetoric.
(heh... the captcha word here is "teletype"... how fitting.)