FCC Backs a Tiered Internet

Going to be extorted writes ""FCC Chief Kevin Martin yesterday gave his support to AT&T and other telcos who want to be able to limit bandwidth to sites like Google, unless those sites pay extortion fees. Martin made it clear in a speech yesterday that he supports such a a "tiered" Internet." Could this be the end of internet innovation?"

Comments

Google really should block AT&T customers

[rjreb]

Let's see who needs who.

Digg screwed this up too.

[Mr. Underbridge]

That's not what he said. He said he's in favor of tiered *access*, as in pay-per-speed cable internet like we have now. He did *NOT* say he was against network neutrality, and even said that they have the power to police that and will do so.

Basically, the blogger completely lacks reading comprehension skills.

Re:I plead the second.

[Lumpy]

It is time for a second Internet to come into action -- one that is voluntarily connected, one that is run over cabling (or satellite) connections that are not subsidized by any government regime. If we want it, it will happen, we just have to support the initial costs. These costs might be higher but in the long run they're lower because we won't be taxed to subsidize the costs.


this existed before the internet and it was neat but horribly slow.

there were people that set up unix and Xenix machines at borders of LATA's (a phone number that can call two areas as a local call) that would call each other to relay email and gopher requests.

it worked great.

Getting broadband speeds without the telcos involved will be 10000% impossible as they have the governments in their back pocket and do you know anyone that can afford 5000 miles of fiber, all the light gear needed to light it up and who can pay for the right of way access for that fiber?

Honestly our ownly hope is for google to light up all that dark fiber they have been buying and put a major hurt on SBC and the other greedy bastards right where it hurts.

Flamebait Article

[Snap E Tom]

Jesus Christ, editors. That headline and summary is pure sensationalist flamebait. Read the original article instead of this blogger's spin.

http://www.networkingpipeline.com/news/183701554

The first half of the article is the AT&T CEO saying that they'll never block access and doing that is business suicide. The second half is this from Martin:

In a question-and-answer period in front of the keynote audience, Martin said that "I do think the commission has the authority necessary" to enforce network neutrality violations, noting that the FCC had in fact done so in the case last year involving Madison River's blocking of Vonage's VoIP service.

"We've already demonstrated we'll take action if necessary," Martin said.

However, Martin also added that he supports network operators' desires to offer different levels of broadband service at different speeds, and at different pricing -- a so-called "tiered" Internet service structure that opponents say could give a market advantage to deep-pocket companies who can afford to pay service providers for preferential treatment.

While Martin said that consumers who don't pay for higher levels of Internet service shouldn't expect to get higher levels of performance, he did say in a following press conference that "the commission needs to make sure" that there are fair-trade ways to ensure that consumers "get what they are purchasing." When asked how consumers could measure service performance levels, Martin said that public Web sites already exist that let users measure their connection speeds.

That's got nothing to do with site extortion. Shame on the submitter.

Re:I plead the second.

[AKAImBatman]

As another poster pointed out, the blogger is wrong here. The FCC has said the following:

In a question-and-answer period in front of the keynote audience, Martin said that "I do think the commission has the authority necessary" to enforce network neutrality violations, noting that the FCC had in fact done so in the case last year involving Madison River's blocking of Vonage's VoIP service.

"We've already demonstrated we'll take action if necessary," Martin said.

In other words, the FCC doesn't want to see the "tiered internet" design, and will slap fines on anyone who tried it. Where the confusion comes in is in this part of his speech:

However, Martin also added that he supports network operators' desires to offer different levels of broadband service at different speeds, and at different pricing -- a so-called "tiered" Internet service structure that opponents say could give a market advantage to deep-pocket companies who can afford to pay service providers for preferential treatment.

While Martin said that consumers who don't pay for higher levels of Internet service shouldn't expect to get higher levels of performance, he did say in a following press conference that "the commission needs to make sure" that there are fair-trade ways to ensure that consumers "get what they are purchasing."

What he's saying is that the FCC is fine with a broadband provider selling you a 6Mbit line at a higher cost than a 2MBit line, as long as you get what you're paying for. The AT&T plan may have resulted in you getting less bandwidth than you paid for if you failed to pay their extortion fees.

Re:I plead the second.

[a_nonamiss]

I'm not a fan of government regulation, but if you eliminate the FCC, every Tom, Dick and Harry could build an inexpensive transmitter in their basement. (With an antenna on the roof) With all those transmitters going at whatever frequency they please, nobody anywhere would be able to pick up anything. As small-government as I am, I still think that there needs to be some regulating body over the airwaves, just for the simple matter of making sure that transmitters aren't walking over each other. (BTW, regulating body doesn't necessarily need to be a government agency, but DOES need to have some authority to shut down illegal broadcasting.)

Google will have a tough time even.

[numbski]

Have you tried to buy dark fiber from a telco before?

Ain't gonna happen. I've tried. I've been trying to months now. Sprint, Charter, Ma Bell, you name it. They all have dark fiber I could simply light up and my work would be done, but none of them will do it. They want to light it and sell me "service", at a price that winds up well exceeding the price of the dark fiber. My choice winds up being having to overbuild them, because none of them will sell. At least not to the little guy, so Google might have an advantage here.

To put this into perspective, when I first started looking, I was being quoted $35/ft for fiber, "just to get to the street". Once you get to "the street", now you're having to shut down roads and such, so we're at closer to $100/ft. That, and my municipality has rules against putting fiber on poles, so you have to bore conduit underground...unless of course you're a big media company with a presence in the area (**cough** Charter **cough**), in which case they get to ignore the rules.

So for me to run fiber 1/4 of a mile to link my two sites? (btw, I'm going to user optical and rf backhauls, but I'd sleep a lot better with a "hardline") would cost nearly 1/2 million dollars. 1/4 mile!

Insanity knows no bounds. :(

Re:I plead the second.

[drp]

The key point that you are missing is this - the internet does not transmit over radio waves. Or, more correctly, the internet does not use the publicly broadcasted spectrum. The FCC's original charter was to ensure that chaos on airwaves did not happen. Somehow, they wormed their way into completely isolated means of communication like fiber optics or coax cable.

I fail to see how the FCC should have any say over anything that I as a private individual or company want to transmit over my privately owned lines, or how much I want to charge people for their use. Of course, this argument does allow for the big telcos to implement the silly double-dipping scheme where they charge both ends of the communication, but the free market exists to prevent that. If SBC/AT&T, Verizon, etc. want to imeplement this, what is stopping Google from forming their own publicly-available routed IP network?

Re:I plead the second.

[a_nonamiss]

You bring up some good points, but let's just suppose I want to be an ass. (And believe me, nothing in the Constitution prevents me from doing so.) I could set up a noise generator in my neighborhood just for the heck of it so that nobody in my neighborhood could do anything. Sure, digital frequency hopping is great, but if I lived next door to you and wanted to be a douchebag, I could, without a whole lot of effort, build a device that would knock out all of your wireless networks. A little more tinkering, and I could make it so that all you hear when you turn on the radio in the morning is Starland Vocal Band's "Afternoon Delight" on every radio in your house, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I'm not talking about 50,000 watts of power here, just enough to get maybe 100 feet. That should be enough to get even with you for letting your cat poop in my garden. Obviously, right now, all of the above activities would be patently illegal. They would come to my house in a matter of days, if not hours, and I would be tried for breaking the law. Without some sort of regulatory body, this type of thing would be common. Again, I hate to play devil's advocate for any government agency, but I just can't see effective self-regulation in this area.