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Verizon Threatens Google's 'Free Lunch'
ILikeRed writes to tell us the Washington Post is reporting that Verizon is becoming much more vocal about internet firms using "their" lines to do business without paying extra. From the article: "The network builders are spending a fortune constructing and maintaining the networks that Google intends to ride on with nothing but cheap servers," Thorne told a conference marking the 10th anniversary of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. "It is enjoying a free lunch that should, by any rational account, be the lunch of the facilities providers." This, as lawmakers are approaching new legislation that could let telcos charge internet companies much more for the use of high speed connections.
Free lunch? It seems like it's neither free as in beer nor speech. As all /.ers know, there is no other kind of free. I'm sure Google's network bandwidth fees are neither free nor small and I know I pay for internet access. So who's getting what for free? Maybe the telecoms are using that little-knownrhetorical device called hyperbole. Or perhaps they are trying to say that companies like Google have found a moreprofitable use for bandwidth than they have and they would like apiece of the pie. A free piece of the pie.
Google isn't getting any more of a "free lunch" than anybody else; all that makes them special is that the service they provide with the bandwidth they use is insanely popular and valuable.
Imagine for a moment that Verizon provides natural gas utilities instead of communications utilities. Google pays 'em for the gas they use to bake the big, juicy pies that everybody loves. Google makes a fortune from their pies. Is Verizon somehow due something extra because their gas was used to fire the oven?
All that Verizon can see are the nice, fat pies Google has cooling on the windowsill. This isn't about free lunch; this is about grabbing a piece of Google's pie for themselves--by crook or hook.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
- Do the Verizon customers who access Google's content pay for their network connections?
:)
- Does Google pay their network provider(s) for the access they're using?
- Does Verzion derive an economic benefit by having access to Google's services for it's paying customers?
Therefore:
- Does Verizon believe that they're not charging their customers enough for the services the customer uses?
It has not escaped my attention that I'm reading Slashdot on a free day pass paid sponsored by Verizon...
~
Ok, can someone explain to me what the problem is? Here's how I see it. You (whoever you are, oh smart /. reader) tell me where I got it wrong.
Google has a bunch of servers in a datacenter. That datacenter is hooked up to the Internet somehow, through some ISP, probably a big one (though clearly not Verizon or they wouldn't beaking off about it so much), because if it wasn't hooked up to _someone_ it'd just be a bunch of servers in isolation and Google would be worth nothing. So, Big ISP has run fiber to Google's datacenter(s), and charges Google a fee each month to carry their data. I mean, Google doesn't get free Internet access, do they? Big ISP collects their money, based either on a 95th percentile deal or a byte count deal, depending on the contract. Big ISP doesn't live in isolation either, or they'd be called AOL. So Big ISP probably has a peering agreement with other ISPs, like, say, Verizon. So Google's traffic goes out Big ISP and over to Verizon when a Verizon customer wants it, and some company hooked up to Verizon's backbone has their data go over to Big ISP when a customer at Big ISP wants it. I've just described peering in its most simple terms, haven't I? So, don't peering agreements work such that if more data goes from Big ISP to Verizon in a month, Big ISP gives Verizon money, and if more data goes the other way, Verizon gives Big ISP money. So if Google is such a massive bandwidth hog, they are not in fact getting a free lunch, because Big ISP has to give Verizon money to meet its commitments for the peering agreement, and Big ISP turns around and collects that money from Google in their monthly fee, and if Google is costing Big ISP more every month, then they (simple economics here) charge them more money. So, my question is, what the HELL is the problem? Isn't Verizon already getting paid for Google traffic?
The companies like Verizon are already paid for their pipes. This would be like me charging someone for hosting their server and then getting upset that they're making money off my bandwidth and wanting to charge them more.
I hope this doesn't become law, otherwise this is going to hurt the entire internet in more ways than one.
*I* as a subscriber am paying a fee to use the *network* to access anything that *I* want to! If that happens to be Google, then that's *my* choice!
and thus the rumors of google buying up dark fiber will rear their head again. maybe google will just obsolete the telcos, anyway. i'd pay google for fiber bandwidth, phone, and digital tv, and i'm sure i'm not alone.
If morons like Verizon keep this up, it will be more like "Call GoogleNet at xxx-xxx-xxxx. Service coming to your area very soon". It looks like another example of mentally retarded accountants trying to get short term profits at the expense of reason and long term viability. Hey shareholders, sell your Verizon stock now before it isn't worth toilet paper.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Fuck you.
To endulge in the time-honored Slashdot tradition of the stretched analogy, isn't this kind of like inventing a whole new end of the candle to burn? The consumers pay for their bandwidth, the content providers pay for theirs. Where is the freeloading?
Normally these ideas make me fume with rage at their sheer evilness. This is odd. I can't actually fathom the logic of this one.
Can somebody help me out so that I can move on to righteous hatred of Verizon?
It's not like Google, Yahoo, et al are sending this data unsolicited.
The are replying to requests made by paying customers of Verizon.
And they're saying they need this to complete their FTTH buildout
in a profitable way?
Hey Verizon! Didn't you do an analysis to see if FTTH would be
profitable before you began such an ambitious program?
If you can't do it profitably, then don't do it. Don't be
disingenuous by saying that now you need Internet Portals to pony
up for some share of the buildout.
And hey, Vince Cerf! You of all people shouldn't be doing the
"imminent death of the Net predicted (film at 11)" bit. If Verizon
or others start providing "tiered access" to the Internet Portals,
paying customers will complain. Let market forces decide the
outcome.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Why didn't I see it before? It makes so much sense. In the same vein, I think content providers should start charging the ISPs for distribution! It's because of the content that people even bother using their ISP's bandwidth. And the ISPs are charging people for this distribution while content providers get paid nothing!
Freeloaders!
"ILikeRed writes to tell us the Washington Post is reporting that Verizon is becoming much more vocal about internet firms using "their" lines to do business without paying extra."
So a telcom spends enormous sums of cash laying fiber, and you have the gall to imply they don't even own the backbone. What a bunch of socialists.
Vote for Pedro
Let's have some metaphorical fun. Suppose you're a mushroom farmer. You sell your mushrooms wholesale for $1 a bushel and life is good; you're not rich but you get by. One day you notice that Mario Batali is using your mushrooms in his restaurant and on his show and making a bundle. He's selling dishes which prominently feature--no rely on--your mushrooms for far more than you thought they were worth. Do you think you have a case to extract a fee from Chef Batali? Is he getting a free lunch from your hard work or does the mushroom farmer just have business-model-envy? I encourage equally metaphorical and perhaps dubious responses.
Since this arrangment works both on the Google end and the Customer end, Verizon ends up getting paid twice for the google traffic.
However Verizon would like to be paid three times for the Google traffic. You can bet if they win that, then they'll start charging customers extra for "faster" access to google. Their accountants would be thrilled if they could charge 4 times for the same product.
Disclaimer: I used to work for a telco. A small one but a telco nevertheless.
Working for a telco is a unique experience. I learned a lot, and believe me, most of it was good. I've learned a lot, both technically and from a management POV. I had some opportunities that a small company could not afford. Even with all problems, it was a good time.
The basic problem with telcos is that they still think in terms of their cash cow service, that is voice. They still think in terms of how much the user will pay per transaction, or minute. They have a huge structure, a huge legacy that can't simply be buried or thrown out the window. They have fear of cannibalizing their own products. But worse, they don't get it, and that's not because they're not intelligent, or bad at what they do. They don't get it because most of the time, people are busy running what pays their wages, and that's the legacy services. There's little incentive inside the company to do something else, specially when it means that it could make a lot of people lose their jobs. There's little incentive for people that talks about cannibalizing revenue.
In the end, telcos are like big animals who are threatened by the changing environment. They may have a lot of power, but in the end, guess what? Evolution is inescapable. Verizon (and other big telcos) may even win this battle, and a few other ones. But in the long term, they can't win the war. Bandwidth is doomed to become cheaper and cheaper. People just want to communicate with each other, and Verizon can't control what people do. It's market at work.
There is more info about the legislation proposed to stop this sort of thing in the article Congress mulls Internet-freedom bill
are through collusion or law.
Because the first company that tries to implement internet tolls alone is going to be at a huge competitive disadvantage. So they'd all have to do it at once. But this kind of collusion is illegal.
But law isn't. :(
While you're at it, don't think of a white bear.
Borrowing the idea from Verizon, auto makers can decide to charge employers fees based on how many people drive to work.
.. you do drive to work ..correct? Also, no "free lunch" for employers who are successful because of car owners.
Or, do you have a well paying job? Surely the car manufacturer deserves a percentage slice of your salary, after all
Sound insane? Well this is the prevalent corp. "logic" today.
Sad, but true.
Since they want to profit from a transaction that doesn't involve them, maybe they should start charging Amazon for every transaction that occurs over their pipes.
The situation is analogous to Verizon wanting to charge me or my pizza delivery service a fee for the pizza I just ordered, because I placed the order over a phone line provided by them. What part of "Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on", are they not understanding?
Verizon are freeloading on Google's (and Yahoo's, etc) content to sell Internet connections to their subscribers.
Now wasn't that easy?
This is the problem of monopolies. Do you notice how Verizon suddenly forgot about all their damn customers that pay them $ 30 - 50 per month for internet access. I mean, they are the ones using their precious pipes. And they PAY for it. Furthermore, Google also pays to send data through the pipes. So you have pipes at each end of which there is a paying customer, Verizon is making billions off of them and at the same time they are bitching that their customers are cheating them.
But of course Verizon can pretend their customers do not exist because they are part of an oligopoly and their only "competitors" are the cable companies which are doing exactly the same thing.
Now imagine if this think happened in an actual competitive, free market industry. Imagine for example if GM starts complaining that all those people keep using "their trucks" for profit and try to extract payment from everyone that purchases a Chevy truck and uses it haul things for money. It would be ridiculous. It would laughable. And of course GM do not do that. In fact they would actually try very hard to get you to buy their truck and use it for profit without reimbursing them.
But of course GM are part of a competitive industry, while Verison are monopolists.
It is obvious now that a company that obtains a secure monopoly will use it to screw over their customers and everyone else. The big orgy of telecom mergers of the 90's should have never been allowed. But now that it has been allowed, the government or the courts should step in or bar monopolistic behaviour.
PS I hope Verizon do not succeed in making internet access more expensive (either in temrs of fees or adds) because then I will have to stop using their cell phone and they do have a pretty decent network.
/. needs a couple more mod categories..
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Come to think of it, Verizon is using my yard for free. They dug a hole in my property and put their crap there without compensating me. Maybe I should dig up their wire and demand to be compensated. If extortion is going to be allowed, I can assure everyone Verizon will lose.
70% of statistics are made up.
Google should do exactly that. Issue a public "so sorry for using your wires" to verizon and start blocking all verizon addresses. Chances are within 24 hours, verizon would be offering to PAY GOOGLE to start using their wires again. Verizon is the one leaching off of the internet content providers..they get $40 (or whatever) a month to sell google et al to their customers without having to pay anything to the content providers.
This isn't about a "free lunch" or "free ride" or anything like that.
... but the REAL money is in controlling the bottleneck.
This is about Verizon realizing that providing the pipeline is a good, solid revenue stream
So, they attempt to frame the debate as "free lunch", but the reality is that they're looking for a way to get some of Google's revenues by building a bottleneck.
Verizon doesn't want to just charge EXTRA.
They want to charge you (your business) based on a percentage
of your gross revenues. As ridiculous as this sounds,
this is exactly what they have been doing with applications
that run on their cell phones (BREW).
Worse than that, they also compete directly with these buisnesses
and usurp the applications that make the most money with
their own ones. So they want to find a way to control things
as neatly as they have done on the phone. If they don't like
the way your application/service/whatever behaves or they like
it TOO much then it disappears.
No one fears an open market as much as large corporations.
Verizon. The communication terrorist. Fnord!
To Whom It May Concern:
I am a Verizon residential DSL customer. I am writing to register my anger towards the comments John Thorne, a Verizon senior vice president and deputy general counsel, made on February 6, 2006 concerning Google's alleged freeloading for gaining access to people's homes using, in part, Verizon's network.
I am your customer. I pay my Internet bill with an expectation that you will allow me to transmit and receive IP packets to and from arbitrary Internet hosts without undue concern for the nature of those communications. Of the many services I receive by using the Internet, Google's services rank highly. Google is not your customer, you do not provide these services for Google's benefit. I am your customer and pay you to provide access to Google's (among other's) services for my benefit. If you feel that you are not being adequately compensated for providing me with those services, it is I, your customer to whom you should be turning to receive extra compensation not Google.
I pay for the services I receive from Google (and other Internet content providers) not by paying my DSL bill to Verizon, but by subscribing to premium content and by viewing additional advertising content paid for by other parties. Google then uses their income from these transactions to pay for their Internet Service Providers to transmit and deliver IP packets on their behalf in order to provide their services. The Internet communications network economy functions by ISPs cooperating in order to share each other's networks in order to provide worldwide connectivity services to their customers. If you want to get paid from both ends of the table I suggest you provide end-to-end connectivity from each of your customers to each of the services your customer is interested in at a rate that is competitive with the multi-AS Internet infrastructure.
I am not just paying for the infrastructure required for me to communicate with your corporate network. I would not pay for that service. I am paying for the fact that your corporate network, which is connected to my home via DSL, is well connected to the Internet at large and provides me with a gateway to the content I desire.
I find it discouraging that I, as a customer, have a better understanding of the functioning of your business model than does your own senior vice president John Thorne. I suggest you remember who your customers are and are not.
Thank you,
John Jones
xyz@verizon.net
And
xyz@gmail.com
e-mail addresses changed to protect my inbox.
They're not saying that Google isn't paying for their own access to the Intertron (tm). Look at the wording they keep using. They are saying that Google is using Verizon's pipes to pump content to Verizon's customers and for that, they should pay a premium. Verizon is talking about customers as if they are nothing more than a resource to be mined, processed, and gerrymandered like anything else that modern industry consumes.
From TFA~
"While Thorne did not specify that practice, he emphasized the need for companies such as his to find ways to make money to justify their investments. "The only way we are going to attract the truly huge amounts of capital needed to build out these networks is to strike down governmental entry barriers and allow providers to realize profits," Thorne said yesterday."
They are NOT going bankrupt off of their investments. They make money. What they are trying to do is MAKE MORE MONEY. If they think that it is unreasonable to spend the "huge amounts of capital", they should not whine when cities like Philadelphia attempt to roll out municpal WiFi. Afterall, that's just one less cost for them to have to eat, right? Actually, this seems to me like a legitimate case for eminent domain (but I'd prefer to see the Gooberment wait until Verizon stops constructing their network before appropriating it). Many of us consider network connectivity to be a utility akin to water, electricity or roadways for daily function. If Verizon wants to play the "gimmie gimmie" game with the Information Superhighway, they should pause to consider how many RL Superhighways are privately owned in this US of A.
Dear Verizon Communications,
It has come to my notice that you as a company are dissatisfied, and are complaining that content providers are unfairly stepping on the toes of bandwidth providers without sharing the profits. It has also come to my attention that you as a company are seeking ways of extircating fees from these content providers in order for them to use your network.
I would like to remind you that the bandwidth that these content providers use is being paid for. No, it's not being paid for by the likes of Google, Microsoft, or any other content provider, for that matter, but by your subscribers. That's right, subscribers. You know, those people who send you a check for $39.95 every month in exchange for their 256K downstream, 128K upstream that they use in order to get from their computer to the content provider's services. These hard working, paying customers are sending you their hard-earned money to ensure that that you give them access to the sites and the content that they want.
If you decide to cut back access for subscribers to reach the content on the public Internet that they want you will find yourself losing subscribers. Should you try to enforce disconnect fees on these subscribers, or try to enforce any other end-of-contract requirements, you will undoubtedly find yourself in court from a number of subscribers who would challenge such fees due to your failure to provide services. It could even reach the level of class-action status, which would make your position even worse.
Do consider what you're thinking about doing. Your services are already being paid for. If you don't like the profitability of the enterprise then you should get out of it, not look for ways to extort money out of others.
Sincerely,
TWX
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Did it ever occur to anyone that this is effectively what landlords do? Once a shop or restaurant starts to prosper they jack up the rent.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Voice Over IP is cutting into Verizon's and SBC's revenue from phone products. SBC already has to deal with cell phones taking away the standard landline but long distance and business voice accounts have always been their real cash cow. Losing that is what I think is really eating them, especially when you add video conferencing on top of it.
If more businesses start following the adoption of private VOIP networks like Department of Defense is doing, the telcos know they're screwed but since they can't stop the DoD, they're flexing their monopolistic leverage to blackmail content providers instead.
I'm just speculating, I could totally be on crack.
- tokengeekgrrl
Verizon gets paid by both those hosting sites and those accessing sites.
But they want to get more money for no actual effort on their part.
Their justification is that Google is getting a 'free pass' on their pipes.
The RIAA member companies get paid when customers buy iTunes music.
But they want to get paid more for no actual effort on their part.
Their justification is that Apple are selling iPods on the back of the RIAA content.
Gary's New Laws of Business:
* If your customers are happy and you're making a solid profit, look for ways to screw them to the wall so that they can leave you in droves.
* If your products are selling well and you've got nothing in the pipeline, rework the pricing structure to screw your customers over so that they can leave you in droves.
* Make everything look as though you're hard done by, and call your customers 'freeloaders', 'scum', 'thieves', 'pirates' and any other names you can think of.
* Lobby your government to make everything you do nice and legal, where previously it was unethical, illegal, immoral, bad for business and just plain dumb.
I await my honorary economics degree.
They are trying to slip legislation not to get money from Google but to stop Voip which is making them into dinosaurs.
Same ploys as SCO.
They are dying and will do anything.
Isn't just about the whole modern American business model about building bottlenecks? Not the first, but today's shining example is that Microsoft has positioned itself as the bottleneck in buying a PC. (the PC "tax"?) (single highest profit part, only part unfettered by competition) The whole patent system has been perverted to where it's no longer used by business (and run by the government) to foster innovation, and everything about creating bottlenecks and tollbooths. Look at the number of things we pay for, like music/movies, etc that are changing from pay-to-obtain to monthly intravenous money drips.
This has very little to do with bandwidth, and much more to do with Google's stock price, and Verizon's envy. (Google's market cap is greater than IBM's.)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Power companies have also finally awoken to the fact that Google has been getting a free ride on the power they are supplying to customers. "We've invested billions of dollars in the world's most stable electrical grid system. Without us, Google's dead."
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
"Businesses have had this free ride for too long - striking lucrative business deals over the phone using our infrastructure, selling products via phone orders, and otherwise exploiting our services. It's only fair that we should get a share of that."
This space available.
This is exactly why the telcos are (to me) being seen as greedy f'n bastards. They're already getting payment from me (and their other customers) to utilize their bandwidth. Now they apparently want to double-dip and charge the party at the far end to send packets of data to the telco's paying customer. Essentially, in POTS terms, they want both the caller and the callee to pay for the same conversation.
Google pays for the bandwidth they use from their provider. I, as a broadband connected citizen, pay for the bandwidth I use to connect to Google. Essentially, the telcos are already getting paid twice - once to accept the packet and again to deliver it to it's destination.
There is *NO* reason why additional charges should be allowed. It's lunacy to think that this could be allowed to happen. Cost of access can do nothing but go up, which will further widen the gap between those that can afford to be online and those that cannot.
If the telcos aren't happy with how much they're paid to have data travel across their network, then they should re-address their pricing structure with their customers directly.
Knowing what a price increase would mean to the number of customers they'd retain, the safer alternative is clear - charge the companies that their users want data from.
Free lunch?! Ha! They've kept their lunch safe and now they're asking for the $50/plate buffet. Greedy f'n bastards...
My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating. -- Ashleigh Brilliant
I'm really getting sick of this "me too" stuff that's coming down from the telcos. I've got $5 that they're afraid that things like VOIP which can be run on other distribution systems (aside from telco lines) is gonna put them out of business. This just seems more of the same, almost like their trying to skim a little off the top of all the success Google gets. You don't see power companies doing this, it's pretty much the same thing.
And of course, this proposal of Verizon's is gonna end up getting costs passed onto consumers, someway or another.
Insert Sig Here
Google has the content, and the means to index it. It owns the technology to make this happen. Verizon, on the other hand, has the right to run their phone lines through lots and lots of privately owned and government owned land that isn't theirs. Even the tech that makes it possible to have the internet does not belong to Verizon; there are many other ways of connecting to Google, and Verizon can easily be replaced.
In other words, Google has something to offer, and Verizon is mostly just an administrator of something that belongs to the public. The tech that makes it possible to have the internet does not belong to Verizon; there are many other ways of connecting to Google, and Verizon can easily be replaced.
If Google goes away we're back to the days where Yahoo ruled, and it takes months to index the internet, and millions of man-hours. Unless you want bad results, of course. The other crawlers can give you those.
The point is that I think maybe I'm sick of Verizon not having to pay google to use its service. Do they really deserve a free lunch from Google?
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Think so? If the Telcos played hardball and Google refused to pay, then struck a deal with the cable companies for exclusive access, who do you think would win? I could flip a coin over DSL or cable at this point, but if only one of them had Google services (and Google could blame the telcos and their extra network charges for that) then I (and everyone I know) would be on cable in a minute.
ISP service is now a commodity, their differentiation is so minimal. Content is the key.
Plus, if Google actually builds their own backbone as many have rumored, people will be paying THEM just to peer.
I dodged taxi fare by buying a car.
I dodged restaraunt bills by cooking my meals.
I dodged cleaning bills by doing laundry
No, sorry, not working for me.
Gee, if it's "their" line, why do *I* get a bill for it? Sad to say, I think they'll be allowed to get away with it until there is a administration more willing to look out for the consumer interest than one intent on reading our email. (Yeah, monkey-boi, I'm talkin' about YOU.)
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Verizon (and others) are clearly using the power-company's electricity to carry out their business. And they are basically getting a free lunch here! Clearly the power-company is entitled to receive their cut of Verizons profits, right?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Exactly. Google and services like it are the only reason what Verizon is selling has any value at all.
If anything, Verizon should be paying Google for adding value to Verizon's service!
Albuquerque PC
This is the end of open information.
The internet will revert back to days where Compuserve and AOL each had their own internet (aka intranet).
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
I'll tell you folks roughly the same thing I told the CPUC at the public hearings about the SBC-AT&T merger:
Telecom and Internet is a part of our national infrastructure, just as surely as are our roads, the air we breathe, and the radio frequency spectrum. Do we let the construction companies that build and maintain the roads OWN the sections to which they've contributed their efforts? Do we let the corporations who lease segments of RF spectrum own them outright? Do we allow the contractors who build our NASA spacecraft and military equipment continue to own what they've built?
No, we don't; those roads, those radiowaves, those spacecraft and tanks and jets, being part of the common infrastructure and used for the common good, belong to all of us.
So why is it that we've allowed telecom companies, beginning with AT&T, to own the sections of common infrastructure which they've constructed? Shouldn't that infrastructure also be recognized as a commonly shared resource, one owned by all of us?
It's my contention that a grievous mistake was made more than thirty years ago, when AT&T was deemed a monopoly and partitioned. It was indeed a "monopoly", because the infrastructure which they helped create was a monolithic and commonly shared resource, exactly in the same fashion as is our system of roads.
The mistake that was made was allowing that resource to be privately owned in the first place. In partitioning AT&T, that shared resource was still privately owned but now by multiple corporations rather than one. What should have happened all those years ago is that AT&T should have been required to become some form of non-profit and truly public entity, perhaps a government agency or contractor - in the same vein as defense contractors - or a non-profit corporation with public oversight. It should not have been sectioned-up, along with our shared electronic resource.
I suspect the logic behind that mistake extends back even further in our history, to the time of the railroads. Rather than recognizing that the railroads would become part of the common infrastructure and funding their construction with that understanding and with public funds, we left it to greedy ambitious entrepreneurs to do it, and retain control of what they had built. We repeated that mistake again with the telegraph system, and yet again with the first telephones. As a nation, we should never have allowed this to happen.
Fast forward back to here and now, and this looming threat of these corporations - which still own the pieces of this national infrastructure - setting up the equivalent of toll booths at all the major intersections and deciding who has to pay and how much. The immediate problem isn't the root problem, it's a mere symptom of the much older problem.
We had the chance - multiple chances - decades ago to make the correct decision about the long-term ownership of our shared national telecom roadways. We made grievous errors then, in our capitalistic zeal; I see little likelihood those errors in judgement will be corrected now. They will be further compounded, unless we the true owners of that infrastructure finally revolt and take back the deed.
Mark
It seems to me that Verizon is arguing that its data services are a pure value add, not part of their role as a public utility. If they want access to public lands for their cables, then they better damn well shut up about "free lunches."
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
This phrase struck me as particularly poigniant (sp?). Up until now I had simply been infuriated by the assumption that Google and I got internet access for free. Hell, my fees are around $50/month, and I'm sure Google's fees are in the tens of thousands a month. Some free lunch.
But it hadn't really struck me yet that this was censorship wrapped in greed. A company wants more money for nothing, and therefor plans to limit my access to information as a way to basically extort money from other companies.
It really boils down to the one that suffers is the home user. Google can pony up, but may not out of protest. But when all this bullshit about free lunch and Verizon being wronged is taken away, I suffer. My access to information - already a very shaky balance - is threatened, and appears that such censorship will even be made law by our wonderful government.
I've got to stop reading Slashdot. These days, it just gets my blood-pressure up.
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
As it stands, the argument is already moot because of the fact that the customer pays the operating costs of the telcos (assuming they're not under-charging), but that would underscore the point more deeply.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
The internet will revert back to days where Compuserve and AOL each had their own internet (aka intranet).
Nope, it'll never happen. It's like the cold war. Each side has too many nukes to lob at each other, and nobody will actually make the first strike.
Look at it like this: Google and other online providers are building this huge host of services. If any telco/ISP actually tries to charge them for running services over their wire, then Google simply stops running services over their wire, blocking off that section of the network entirely. Suddenly telco/ISP's customers can't access their Gmail, can't do their google searches, etc, etc. Customers bitch furiously, and start leaving ISP in droves, to competing ISP that isn't trying to be such a bastard. ISP repents and Google provides service to that segment of the network again.
No ISP is actually going to try to charge these major service providers because the end result is simply that these service providers simply cut them off. The ISP has little or no content that people actually want to use. They'd love to be in the content game, but they have proven, time and again, that they suck at it. Customers want the same content that their friends get. If my ISP does something that impacts my access to the content I want, then I'm damn well going to switch ISPs, yeah?
Google is standing up to the freakin' government to not have to release their search stats, you think they aren't going to shoot the finger to any of these ISP who tells them to buck up for use of their line? The mere fact that Google *will* cut off an ISP is enough to keep that ISP from pulling the trigger on this sort of nonsense, at least until the ISP thinks that it really can replace all the content on teh interweb.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
How much does it cost for a wired phone in your home/apartment/office? Call it about $20/month. (I know it is more in many places, but stay with me...)
Now, a broadband connection, depending on overall throughput, may cost $100/month.
Still with me?
OK - How many voice conversations can be supported over that broadband connection? More than 5? More than 10? More than 100? Anything over 5 means the provider is losing money. If someone cancels their wired phone and uses a broadband connection, the provider loses that revenue. Now, a single customer might not be too bad, the company may be providing the high-speed connection. However, it is still less revenue than there would have been.
Now, we throw in a company that sets up in your neighborhood and offers you VoIP services over their broadband connection, so you don't need to keep your wired phone. If 10 people in the neighborhood do that, then the telecomm is 'losing' money. They have less revenue than before, and less profits, they have 1 new customer paying $100 for the broadband connection, but have lost 10 people paying $20, for a "loss" of $100.
Take it to the extreme, and have someone like Google provide phone service to anyone with an Internet connection. Imagine every person in the US cancels their regular phone service to use Google's service. The telecomms go bankrupt, or they have to increase the price of broadband by orders of magnitude. Yes, the company's may be bloated. Yes, tax dollars may have paid for the telecomm to run fiber. However, this was done so services could be fairly offered to everyone. Could my town of 800 have afforded to run fiber 30 miles to the nearest city? No. However, they can pay enough for service that it is profitable to maintain and manage that connection. It is the same with roads. Some roads use federal or state dollars to get paved. They may only connect 30 or 40 people, but that's the way things are. If we didn't do it this way, there would be extensive roads around cities, connected only by the Interstates. OK, I'm kind of off-topic now...
Anyway, the current market prices are because the revenue stream assumes that there will be wired home users paying more than their bandwidth is worth, as compared to a broadband Internet connection. If they lose those customers, it means that the cost for Internet bandwidth will rise - dramatically. So, they would rather have a company providing those services pay more, rather than having the cost pass on to all of their users.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
I pay for an internet portal. I used to use QWest, but have gone to Comcast. Either eay, I am paying $45 to access the internet.
Google is paying for their internet access as well. They are using something along the lines of T3, DS3, or OC3 connection(s) which also cost money. Both Telco and Cable companies are using the lines for dual access, one for POTS lines and DSL the other for Cable TV and Internet.
I don't pay for Cable TV as I have satellite, but I don't/can't use Satellite Internet. I don't have a POTS line because I have VoIP, and I don't use DSL.
I know the telco is worried about their $$, but they should provide internet service and VoIP and skip the POTS crap. Even if someone doesn't use the DSL connection, it wouldn't hurt the Telco to charge the $30 a month for VoIP just like they do for POTS. They simply wouldn't give you a DSL Modem, only a VoIP modem.
Either that, or cable providers who offer internet need to support highter bandwidth, like the DS3 and OC3 and higher...then we could cut Verizon and QWest (etc) out of the internet portal picture...
They complain about a free lunch, but as far as I can tell, everyone is paying for their access and usage of the phone lines...just because VoIP and other services directly come into conflict with what Verizon and QWest provide, shouldn't make any difference...the internet is one large marketplace... If they limit or restrict access, then they will be engaging in unfair business practices, or forcing alternatives to their service, which will further bomb their bottom line.
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