Telcos Propose 2-Tier Internet

cshirky writes "Boston.com is reporting that 'AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp. are lobbying Capitol Hill for the right to create a two-tiered Internet, where the telecom carriers' own Internet services would be transmitted faster and more efficiently than those of their competitors.' The telcos basic fear, of course, is that the end to end design of the net (PDF version) will erode the telcos ability to use service charges to generate revenue for delivering video and voice; the proposed solution is to break end-to-end in order to protect pricing leverage over the users." We reported on this at the beginning of the month, when it was just speculation. Not any more.

Comments

Time for another breakup?

[Scoth]

I admit to being a bit too young to remember the original, but maybe it's time for another breakup similar to the original Bell? Seems the current ones have gotten a bit too monopolistic, IMHO...

Re:Time for another breakup?

[Catbeller]

I'm more than old enough, so here's how it was, in brief: AT&T fought the monopoly battle in court for almost ten years, lost in '84, then was broken up into multiple geographical companies, AT&T for long distance only, and Bell Labs became Lucent Technologies.

During the last twenty years, they've individually frozen out as much competition as they could, in a forward-guard holding action. And the last two decades have seen the installation of a lot of judges whose philosophies are decidedly pro-business with a jaundiced eye for monopoly regulation, as well as a large number of legislators and at least two Presidents, even three as Clinton wasn't exactly a flaming socialist, turning a blind eye and a curious lack of oversight as the Baby Bells merged together again.

Right now, the Justice Department has found itself stripped of monies to enforce antitrust law for the last five years. No money for investigations, no investigators. It's like repealing antitrust legislation without the messy bother of repealing the laws. (Ditto environmental laws, pollution, meat inspection, etc. ad nauseum).

So the last ones standing are AT&T and SBC. And they will merge very soon, so here we are again, with one monopoly dictating terms. And even if somehow a new set of enforcers come in after the next election, they will find a hostile Congress and court system slowing them down. Even in ideal circumstances, as we found with the original AT&T breakup and the Microsoft conviction, it takes ten years to get to the point of enforcing antitrust laws under a judge's supervision, and a lot can happen in ten years. A new Republican president can be elected, and the case dies. New technology can obsolete AT&T entirely in ten years -- if they let it happen (look at Philadephia and Pennsylvania trying to install municipal WiFi).

Every decade, the corporate powers grow stronger, more integrated with the government and the courts. The ability to enforce antitrust laws is decreasing hyperbolically with each era.

Re:Time for another breakup?

[Captain Splendid]

You know, that's a comforting thought, but to the Telcos, it's just going to be another batch of obstacle they can whine about to Congress. The conversation might go something like this:

Telcos: "Waahhh, this is turning out to be too expensive! Please make the taxpayers pay for it instead of us!"
Congress: "Sure thing! Don't forget us during election time!"

On a related note, anybody wanna take a crack at defending capitalism anymore?

Re:Time for another breakup?

[dada21]

On a related note, anybody wanna take a crack at defending capitalism anymore?

I will.

Capitalism is providing no regulation or public funding for a market. Mercantilism is providing corporate welfare for favored company. Lincoln fought a war to protect his mercantilist dreams. Congress today runs the mercantilist ship, with the Executive branch profiting from the warfare state. You have Congress doling out corporate welfare with the Executive's warfare manipulations.

Don't confuse a free market with a regulated one. Capitalism is merely the process of billions of consumers and producers making unique trades that create common values that can change on a whim, but the entire process still runs. Mercantilism is stealing from the majority to support a minority that the majority didn't want to support at the price they were asking.

Re:Time for another breakup?

[Skreems]

Except the GP is pointing out the fact that what we try to pretend is a capitalist system is in reality a buddy-oriented socialist state. If we would just come out and ADMIT that we want to be socialist, then we could concentrate on making sure that the money propping up corporations is distributed to benefit the citizens at large, not the corporations and the corrupt politicians. In which case, there is no possible way we would consider paying corporations to take choice away from the citizens in the manner this article describes.

Re:Time for another breakup?

[kindbud]

I see. So, just like the communist utopias, unadulterated capitalism, too, is a pipe dream, dosconnected from reality, and will never be realized.

Re:Time for another breakup?

[Darby]

He used it twice. He meant it. And it is an incredibly accurate term to use with respect to the Bush administration's manipulation of policy and perception. Under the diseased system of government of today, we who question and seek accountability are the enemy.

I hate Bush as much as any decent human being, but you really need to expand the blame to include pretty much the entire post World War 2 US foreign policy.
Ike laid it out pretty clearly

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

The problems with the weapons industry have long been clear. What you're seeing here is other industries trying to expand their membership in the club.
Socialized costs and privatized profits are a very real problem, no matter the industry.

Does this fall...

[Spytap]

Does this fall under the heading of "If we ask permission, it's not illegal anymore?"

Common Carrier?

[mwsmith824]

Wouldn't this go against the common carrier provisions? Wouldn't this sort of filtering and degrading things that they choose open them up to liability in other areas like P2P sharing that happens on their networks?

Wait...

[Malacon]

So they want to break the internet to make more money for themselves?

Will anyone actually go for this?

Seriously, what ever happened to running a business on the merits of its product, not on cash generated by hidden surcharges?

Why ask Congress?

[dada21]

It confuses me as to why Congress should have any say in companies creating additional networks. Interstate commerce clause? What a joke.

If companies want to try to create supernets for their customers to better access each other, I say allow them to. I can not imagine any supernet subverting the Internet in any way. If an ISP decides to slow down traffic to non-ISP destinations, you're going to see user backlash. I've changed ISPs over the years due to bad routing (or repeatedly failed routing) and I know some of my non-techie friends have done the same.

These supernets would just be a second backbone connecting their network together, correct? I think this is a great idea, especially for corporations that can not afford their own backbone connections for remote offices. If my companies could connect quickly through a secondary network at no additional cost (or lower cost), I'd jump on it immediately.

I just can't understand why Congress has any say in what companies do with their own property. They're already providing for the "public need" and they should be free to supplement the "public need" for what other users are demanding/needing.

Re:Why ask Congress?

[Nom du Keyboard]

I just can't understand why Congress has any say in what companies do with their own property.

Allow me to elucidate.

It's because they are a Monopoly. It's because you, the customer, doesn't have any other reasonable choice if you don't want to go with them. It's because in return for being allowed to be a monopoly that they have to play by different rules than the open market. You take your choice of monopoly or open market, but once you make it quit yer complaining about the rules you initially agreed to follow!

Clear now?

Re:Why ask Congress?

[supabeast!]

"I have a cable modem, my friend across the country has one. A little free VoIP software and we've forgotten about the telco."

The telco is still there. Comcast doesn't have its own huge backbone running connections out to all of its own users around the USA, it uses the backbones provided by the big telco monopolies to do that. So if they decide to create special high-priority networks accessible only at a premium charge, and degrade the quality of the existing networks to make VOIP unusable, you'll have to pay extra for a premium Comcast account that can send data over the premium networks.

Unfortunately its next to impossible for anyone else to move in an build new networks that can challenge the big telcos, because years of overregulation kept everyone else out of the business for so long. So if the telcos manage to pull this one off, everyone who wants low-latency access will be paying extra to the big telcos unless a huge number of people pool their resources to build new backbones, which would most likely require government involvement that will make such actions illegal under the anti-municipal internet laws that the telcos will doublessly get pushed through at the federal level at the same time they get Congress to allow them to build the premium backbones.