Slashdot Mirror
BellSouth Will Charge Providers For Performance
smooth wombat writes "In a follow-up to this Slashdot story from last month, BellSouth has confirmed that it is in discussions with content providers to levy charges to reliably and speedily deliver content and services of the providers.
Bill Smith, chief technology officer at BellSouth justified content charging companies by saying they are using the telco's network without paying for it. "
I know it sounds cheesy, but this is a big moment in the history. If we do not stop this, internet will be changed completely as we know it today. I hope people are outraged and something is done to stop this! Unfortunately, the media in US is completely ignorant of the importance of this thing...
"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."--Howard Zinn
Yep, separate the moronic ISPs who'll be out of business in 5 years and the innovative cost-effective ones that'll be in business for a while.
My understanding is that I have paid for a specific download and upload rate from my provider. That rate allows whatever content I download - iTunes or Limewire, applications and product updates. My Understanding is that Apple pays for their connection to the internet, as well, and that there is some level of service ( in bits/sec) that they pay for. So where is this - "they didn't pay us" The transmission of the bits has been paid for, whether those bits were html pages or mp3s or program updates is irrelevant to the discussion. This is all the outcome of the FCC decision not to apply the telecom rules to the broadband market and to 'regulate' it as an information service. All of which ought to sway those who argue that regulation is unnecessary that their view is inadequate, regulation can be good or can be bad - it depends on the regulations, but the lack of regulation always gives the person or group in a power position the right to dictate terms. Some people may argue that you can always switch from BellSouth, but that isn't reality for most people - it is their only choice. If telcos have mispricedthe service, for me or for the content providers, then the price for a level of service should, and will, rise, but charging to tilt the playing field (in favor of the paying content providers) will raise the barrier to entry, and ultimately it will foreclose certain types of internet use, specifically shared, non-commercial applications.
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
So does this mean a small website could sue for extortion or sabotage if the network performance is poor? With this liability and the potential loss of common carrier status for the "paid off" pages, I would think the company lawyers would be nervous. But then again, it seems no company is looking ahead to potential liability anymore.
I don't think they want to get paid twice. I think they want the aggregate influence of their subscribers to use as leverage against other companies. That's more flexible than money. If this is allowed it only moves the decision of what you want to use your internet connection for from the consumer to the communications company. Any idea why anyone would want this except ISPs?
Bellsouth DSL users, post up your alternatives... my bet is they're a network of regional monopolies. Of course if there's cable modems competing against them, the cable modem providers are probably thinking of a similar tactic.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
It goes without saying that BellSouth are probably one of the biggest, if not the biggest, gateways between IPs in US and the rest of the world. But what about their Global reach?
Will traffic between EU addresss be affected by this? EU and Japan? China? Middle east? India? Are Canadian content providers going to have to pay BellSouth extortion money to host for customers outside of the US?
Anyone have any ideas on this? How long has his arm grown while the armies of good lay sleeping?
May the Maths Be with you!
- Cap all traffic from everywhere at a certain rate or usage limit
- Charge either provider or subscriber for a higher bandwidth cap on a site. A subscriber could have a list of sites they would like as "premium" - maybe even submit a bookmark list on a micropayment per address scheme. The provider would of course pay for their sites or even individual files to be "premium".
- (obscene) Profit!!!
Think of it as a modified cable business model.US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
And can I pay to have my competitor's service not accelerated?
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
So, does this mean I can bill Bell South for all the zombie PC's on their networks sending me spam? How about if Google charges Bell South a "delivery surcharge" to ensure that BS customers' searches are completed in an accurate and timely fashion? What if cnn.com only shows the first 50 words of each story to Bell South customers unless they receive an extra fee? Who is going to scream with pain first? If BS becomes an unusable paraiah network, where will BS be as a company in a couple of years?
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!
.they will make you an offer and you can gladly take their money.
Give the man a prize.
If you include company's logo in your video game without asking you are likely to get a nastygram from their lawyers insisting you remove it.
If you contact them and ask them how much they want to license the logo to you they will quote you a price and gladly take your money.
But. . .
If you contact them and ask them what they will pay for product placement . .
Learn the equation. Work the side that works for you.
KFG
Hmm... since connection speed can be slowed down at both the server and the ISP, couldn't a popular website do the same thing to BellSouth. Take Yahoo or Google for example. They could demand that BellSouth pay them a hefty monthly fee or they'll throttle any traffic to their IP space to 5 KB/s or perhaps add a 7500 ms delay. Such a slow speed (and an explaination from the website about the new two-tiered internet) would cause a LOT of customers to switch. (Why pay for high speed access if everything is throttled?) Websites obviously couldn't do this to every ISP, but they could certainly do it to any one of them. After all, since a lot of websites use ads to generate revenue, they probably couldn't afford to pay every ISP some fee. Of course, even if they did then their ads, being hosted on a different server, would either slow down their entire webpage (making paying the fee pointless), or simply not load before the user moves on.
4. Pay all your obscene profit (and then some...) back to HNS, as patent infringment fees. Just Read claim #12 of EP1050117: Yes, they do patent stuff such as this (don't be fooled by the complicated language... it's really as trivial as "limit bandwidth by webserver and user"). While I usually don't agree with software patents, I have to admit that in this case it's beneficial: at least it prevents Bellsouth from being too annoying to its users and to the world at large
Say no to software patents.
Incredibly good point... It would be like your phone company sending a bill to everyone that you call... If you are already supposed to be paying for the entire call, what right do they have to charge someone else for the same call? I'd be tempted as a consumer to try to sue BellSouth for at least part of the cost of my DSL, since apparently I'm not supposed to be paying the entire cost of my connection - apparently the content providers are paying some of it - sounds like a simple case of over-billing! 2 slices of the cake indeed.
In the scenario where the Bells charge the customer more for a select couple of sites, if I were Google or Yahoo!, I'd be pretty pissed that a Bell thought it could charge more for MY services.
"We'll give you better Google" assumes that they have the right to mess with Google at all.
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
Yes bellsouth wants to charge you for both ends of that phone call. What else they want to do is force companies like VOIP providers to pay higher rates than say Google or Itunes and the VOIP provider has to pass that cost on to you. How much would bellsouth charge for such a thing, well probably something in EXCESS of what they charge the average schmuck for long distance service. Effectively making someone like Vonage charge their users more than BS has to charge its customers for the services.
So they completely plan on screwing the end user. But hey as long as they are loyal to their shareholders who gives a flip about you lousy customers, you cost too much using all of that bandwidth we are selling to you! This doesnt remind me anything of monopolistic business practices.
Sick of stupidity? http://www.patentlystupid.com
If I was Google, and BellSouth tried to extort money from me, I would simply shut down access to Google from BellSouth, replacing it with a page saying why, and giving BellSouth CEO's home phone number.
I'm sure BellSouth recognizes the leverage the larger content providers have, and thus will be going after less established ones.
Also, content providers aren't paying BellSouth to use their lines??!?! Well BellSouth isn't paying the content providers for their content!!!
The instant they start doing this, they lose the protection of 'Common Carrier' and instantly become legally liable for anything any of their customers do. Either their lawyers are idiots -- for not realizing this, or thinking they have a loophole -- or the PHB's aren't listening.
Look at what this could mean: Right now, the whole beauty of the internet is the egalitarian nature of it. I, being just one fellow in a world of billions, can start a site -- any site I choose to really -- and have it seen by the world. If there is a commercial element to my site (ads or products) I then have the potential to compete with some of the biggest names out there. Blogs compete with newspapers worth billions of dollars. Small eCommerce shops compete with retailers who tower over them. You really can say that never has an opportunity existed.
This is what makes me nervous about this new idea. Wouldn't the AMZNs & NY Times of the world back this for no other reason as they have the money to pay for this while Joe Upstart doesn't. Wouldn't that put everyone back in their place? Wouldn't that undo so much of what has happened over the last 10 years? That seems to be the largest threat that the Internet has seen.
I am very doubtful it will happen, however. I have already read some comments that the FCC has made to the effect that this may violate some of the provisions that were put in place during many of the telcomm mergers. I have also read a few newspaper columnists already start to hit on this which could translate into politicians seeing this as something adverse to their constituents.
In a certain sense, I feel like this is something that has to be decided. Ever since VOIP started to go mainstream, I wondered when the bandwidth providers would start to get pissy that people were actually using what they were selling.