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. "

Comments

Wow..change in the world

[MasterOfUniverse]

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...

Re:There goes

[altoz]

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.

Is this a surprise?

[denissmith]

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.

Re:There goes

[houstonbofh]

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.

BellSouth's Global Reach?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

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?

Re:Bell greed won't go away

[BrynM]

What would they do - require a fee per domain name to be consumed by a household (and enforce it how? That's one heck of an ACL - as if RBOC DSL service isn't sluggish enough already - Qwest can't get you down the street from home to serving wire center under 40-45 ms typically).

The scheme would probably work like this:

1. Cap all traffic from everywhere at a certain rate or usage limit
2. 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".
3. (obscene) Profit!!!

Think of it as a modified cable business model.

Competition?

[RingDev]

And can I pay to have my competitor's service not accelerated?

-Rick

Turnabout....

[Deton8]

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?

Re:Your ISP customers paid you, numbnuts...

[kfg]

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!

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 . . .they will make you an offer and you can gladly take their money.

Learn the equation. Work the side that works for you.

KFG

Hughes Network Systems to the rescue! (EP1050117)

[BlueUnderwear]

The scheme would probably work like this:

1. Cap all traffic from everywhere at a certain rate or usage limit
2. 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".
3. (obscene) Profit!!! Think of it as a modified cable business model.

You forgot:
4. Pay all your obscene profit (and then some...) back to HNS, as patent infringment fees. Just Read claim #12 of EP1050117:

12. A method for controlling the rate at which data is transferred between a source computer (140) and a plurality of requesting terminals (110) comprising the steps of:

• monitoring the rate at which data is transferred to each of the requesting terminals (110);
• determining account information for each requesting terminal (110);
• determining a level of service subsribed to by each of the requesting terminals (110) from the account information;
• comparing the rate at which data is transferred to each of the plurality of requesting terminals (110) and the level of service subsribed to by each of the requesting terminals (110);
• and controlling the rate at which data is transferred to each of the requesting terminals (110) based on the comparison

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 ;-)

Re:There goes

[jamieswith]

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.

Re:There goes

[rahlquist]

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.

Re:Greed

[Ossifer]

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!!!