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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.
not like anyone reading this doesn't know already, but this would be the worst thing ever to happen to the internet. if you think they would stop by offering crap connections for competitors, you're blind. things like /. would be low priorities since they love to expose what big bells are doing to screw us.
-- lol pwned
Hmm, maybe we need to send these telcos over to World of Ends and remind them that the end-to-end or "dumb" nature of the Internet (in the sense that all the logic is handled at each end, not in the middle) is a big part of what's made it successful.
Not that that's ever stopped anyone from killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, of course...
Wouldn't this automatically end their common carrier status, if they're filtering blocking traffic from certain sources to certain destinations? Or is that something they hope the law they're lobbying for to address? The Telecommunications Cake Eating and Having Antiterrorism and Freedom Act of 2006!
This means that common carriers will be essentially committing fraud.
If for example, I get a T1 from Verizon (I would never buy from them directly, we're going with an alternate provider, but hear me out) and AT&T has a dispute with Verizon. Were this thing to pass, data transfers between my T-1 and a customer's T1 (who happens to be an AT&T provider) would be downgraded. This means that my customer is not getting the full 1.54mbps bandwidth their SLA guarantees, and by effect neither would I. This is {potentially} interference with interstate commerce and is also discriminatory in deciding whose traffic goes where, not to mention breach of contract (violating the SLA).
Implementing this kind of policy should immediately result in the provider's losing common carrier status, as by advertising one thing and then providing a different service, they are carrying out a bait-and-switch on the customer - in short, fraud.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
They have their own private internet for video services and a separate internet for normal IP traffic flow.
This allows them to send massive amounts of video with fairly reliable QOS.
BS,
if you live in New York maybe, but living in central illinois, if I want landline phone service I have one choice SBC, if I want broadband I have one choice, InsightBB.
SBC to offer DSL but left the market because it was small.
The only telco service where I have had any choice is Cell phones. Most of the telcos have regional monopolies. Not national, but still pretty hard to deal with as a consumer.
The Telcos have been the beneficiaries of large grants of land siezed or given to them by the government. The government taxes their customers and then hands that money to the Telcos to pay for capital improvements in less profitable geogephic markets. The Telcos benefit from government regulation that places enourmous barriers to entry for competitors attempting to enter their markets.
So yeah, the are subject to congressional oversight. If they don't like that they should'nt have gone to Congress in the first place for all the freebies and just conducted business in an open market.
It really hacks me off when whiney corps try to have it both ways.
I don't deny everything you say, but the landscape today is very different than it was in 1984. Pre-breakup there was no other game in town. Now even if Ma' Bell is reassembled there are several alternatives.
First, cell phones are wide spread, and the companies that control them aren't entirely under the thumb of Ma' Bell. Verizon and Cingular are closely related to Regional Bell operating companies, T-Mobile and Sprint are not. They'll limit any power that resurgent Ma' Bell could exercise.
Second, the cable tv industry is making strong moves into telephony. The VoIP bundles offered by the cable companies provide the second line of defense against Ma' Bell.
Third, municpal broadband would only become a stronger alternative in the face of a reassembled Ma' Bell. Municipal broadband, coupled with Skype, Vonage, or a dozen others will offer a third line of defense against Ma' Bell.
Fourth, new technologies like WiMax will provide additional communications options.
In 1984, Ma' Bell was a monopoly because not only did they completely control a particular service, but there was feasible substitute service available. Twenty-one years later there are several substitutes available and so the monopoly won't have near the market influence it once had. The attempts to reestablish Ma' Bell should be interpretted as a set of uncompetative companies merging in order to hopefully achieve economies of scale and become competative - not an attempt to reestablish an old monopoly.
Yes, TCP/IP is built to be reliable and decentralized, but the lower-level protocols used by big telcos, like ATM, can discriminate just fine.
-- Sig down
Everybody loses except a few thousand majority shareholders, executives and politicians, yet these are the systems that are held up as paragons to emulate.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!