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The Future of the Internet
bariswheel writes "An important piece written by a Columbia Law professor addresses sensitive questions about the future of the Internet: "Is it a problem if the gatekeepers (i.e. a duopoly of the local phone and cable companies) discriminate between favored and disfavored uses of the Internet? How would you take it if AT&T makes it slower and harder to reach Gmail and quicker and easier to reach Yahoo! mail? What if I-95 announced an exclusive deal with General Motors to provide a special "rush-hour" lane for GM cars only? Is there something special about "carriers" and infrastructure--roads, canals, electric grids, trains, the Internet--that mandates special treatment? Should content providers like Google, or subscribers like us, pay for the bandwidth consumed?" Here's hoping that sites like Google Techtalks and Channel 9 remain 'free' and available for the next 10 years."
Is that the tension over US control causes a splintering of the internet. So that you would have to do something weird if you were in the US and wanted to use the "French internet". It would be like the old days, when you had to be on bitnet to send mail to someone on bitnet.
I think it might be quite problematic to offer different speeds for different services with some other countries that don't follow the same logic. Also, it might be that "throttled" content providers move across the borders and demand, as "international traffic", equal treatment.
I could see some quite interesting lawsuits coming down that throttled road.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm not sure if similar actions are widespread in the US yet, but up here, Canadian ISPs already discriminate based on content. Ports used by popuplar P2P software is throttled to the point where throughput is almost choked off completely. Many Rogers subscribers have found a way to "hack" their torrent bandwidth back to normal, at least temporarily, by using the same port Rogers is using for their new VOIP service.
Resistance seems futile, as no ISP wants their users using P2P apps. What can we do? We used to threaten to cancel our services with providers guilty of bandwidth throttling, but now they all do it, so what options are left, besides simply accepting that this is how the future of the Internet will be? Normal access to "preferred" sites that make the ISP money, and discouraged (throttled) access to sites and services that cost the ISP money. It sucks. I'm open to suggestions.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Anonymous Coward splices comma, calls Columbia professor a "moron," links to article which only illustrates AC's own failure at life. Film at 11.
Bonsai Kitten: TNG
I guess to me it would be a matter of how "slow" or how much "harder". I mean how do they make it "harder"...have www.gmail.com NOT go to GMail .
"...Should content providers like Google, or subscribers like us, pay for the bandwidth consumed?""
Again, both consumers, via the monthly charges to their ISP, and Google, via the presumably large charges from whoever provides their bandwidth, are already paying for bandwidth consumed.
Why do people keep repeating this absurd claim?
Three Squirrels
Just another persona totally irrelevant to internet and speaks on things he has no clue about.
Can you imagine what would happen if such things, filtering, seperate pricing, access procedures etc should be done, with hundreds of thousands sites erected each day, maybe 20 thousand and more isps active around the world, hordes of networks, satellite and telecom operators, datacenters ?
The result would be an INFINITE and ever increasing number of protocols, prices, agreements, disagreements, filters, etc and stuff !!!
How much cpu power would the operators need to determine what goes to where and what goes not if such mess was introduced ? Google would have to erect a new server farm to process 'filters', and it would be one that is comparable to the one it uses for search processing.
'Pay for bandwith' my arse. The profits from bandwidth would go to maintaining endless server farms all around the world to process access limitations.
I repeat : people should not be allowed to propose laws in an area they have no expertise, training or experience in.
Read radical news here
"What if I-95 announced an exclusive deal with General Motors to provide a special "rush-hour" lane for GM cars only?"
GM doesnt pay for the roads. Taxpayers do. Now if GM went a built a series of roads with their money and only allowed their cars to use those roads, would you object?
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
Do this: Traceroute to your favorite sites. Understand that traceroute is no longer the tool it once was, ICMP ttl-exceeded messages are not always handled, and you aren't seeing things like paths over MPLS where there are tags that created switched paths across the net. But... it's the best thing the end user has, unless your broadband provider or ISP disallows it.
On average, how many carriers did you cross? What would happen if a carrier started using Class-Based Queueing techniques just across their sections? What if they started creating tariffs, quotas, import fees of classified "bulk traffic', or started using the differentiated services model at internet peering points? I'm not talking about rate-queues and other things that guys on NANOG routinely do now, I'm talking about corporate sponsored refusal to carry types of traffic.
A complex system of MPLS paths based on traffic types would result, BGP tags would get processed to have implied meanings (i.e. AT&T won't carry my SMTP messages unless they are destined for email servers in the AT&T network) and on the whole, it would get pretty messy.
Now, the economic result of this would be that carriers would set up trade barriers to each other, not unlike nations do. And the net-net would be... market consolidation. How could it not? The small ISPs and regional carriers would eventually fall prey to larger groups who would create mutually beneficial arrangements to carry traffic and create cartels to approach the major websites, esp. the search engines, and demand that they pay up. Google would need to pay into formed groups like "the Consolodated Tier-1 providers of North America" to allow broadband users to reach Google services.
The end result would be the fragmentation of the internet. Large parts of it would be unreachable from certain parts of the world. And that's over and above national firewalls like the Chinese have, this wouldn't be censorship - this would just be business. The board at AT&T now has the technology to really implement differentiation, and now they want to use it. To make money, at the expense of content providers and value-add information sites. I don't see how that is a good thing.
"GM doesnt pay for the roads. Taxpayers do. Now if GM went a built a series of roads with their money and only allowed their cars to use those roads, would you object?"
Now, if GM paid for the roads themselves out of monies earned via a legally granted monopoly, say, that only GM cars are allowed to be driven in the region, would you object?
If the roads were partially funded by a special assessment on all drivers of GM cars, regardless of whether they choose to use those roads, would you object?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I pay my ISP to provide me with a connection to the internet.
Google pays their ISP to provide them with a connection to the internet.
Why exactly should either ISP be allowed to charge extra for me to connect to Google?
Look at it this way: If I pay for a 3 Mb connection and Google can deliver a 3 Mb downstream, I expect my ISP to allow that. Otherwise, I am NOT getting what I pay for. So basically what a number of ISPs want to do is promise their customers a connection which they will not deliver unless a given website *also* pays for their customers to get that connection.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
From the summary: What if I-95 announced an exclusive deal with General Motors to provide a special "rush-hour" lane for GM cars only?
I think they already do this in some states, except they discriminate by how many blow-up dolls you are transporting in your vehicle.
Should content providers like Google, or subscribers like us, pay for the bandwidth consumed?
Both of us already pay for our connection. I pay $45+tax+fees+basic_cable per month for a decently fat pipe coming into my house. Google pays something I don't even want to imagine for the bandwidth it consumes - and that includes the bandwidth for which I also paid to connect to Google.
But now the telecoms have said they want even more??? Greedy bastards we should do away with, for certain. But do we need to worry about non-net-neutrality?
Everyone talks about "imagine carrier-X favoring MSN over Google"... But Google already pays for a guaranteed bandwidth. My connection at work pays for a guaranteed bandwidth. Although I currently pay for peak bandwidth rather than guaranteed on my home connection, watch how fast consumers drop ISPs that throttle them for reasons unrelated to congestion. "But I can stream HD video from MSN? Great, fuck you too, I don't use MSN, cancel my account!"
So this leaves AT&T with three options - breach of contract with their "supply-side" customers, or loss of constomers on the "consumer-side". Wait, I said "three", didn't I? Yep - They have one other choice. They already need to provide a certain level of service to Google and to Joe Sixpack. But they have the option of making MSN faster than the competition. Whether they do that as anticompetitive price-cuts for higher bandwidth or as network infrastructure upgrades, both would tend to drive prices down and quality up. End result, they lose their own bone barking at the dog in the stream.
The money that Yahoo could pay to throttle Google's web traffic is miniscule compared to Cox making $85.00 a month per family in their service area.
ISP's make money while content companies have largely failed to live up to their Bubble-ish expectations.
Google only makes 7-8 billion in revenue, and the amount that could be diverted to potential bandwidth-throttling is not that much compared to the money ISP's generate from maintaining existing customers.
Other content sites aren't nearly as successful as Google, and would have even less leverage to engage in these anticompetitive practices.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
To qualify to use an HOV lane, you must have the requisite number of people in your car. You're given entitlement to use this lane because you are trying to help reduce congestion, help save gas, help reduce pollution, etc. There's no extra charge and no vendor lock in. It works mostly because many people would rather get to work fast, even if it means sharing their car with others.
It's not at all a parallel situation with what AT&T wants to do. Your analogy may call attention to the one value of tiered interenet, but completely ignores that they way in which a greedy monopoly will use it as a weapon to lock down consumers. The government, the only authority for HOV lanes, may be a useless bureacracy but we can control the proliferation and governance of HOV lanes easily with our votes and angry protests. We have absolutely no control at all over AT&T...unless we want to live without a phone or internet.
I think a 'tiered' internet is trouble from the start, but what about this scenerio: Your VOIP provider starts providing 911 service, and your 911 call gets squashed by your neighbor's video download. Under strict 'net neutrality', it is possible for this to happen, if unlikely.
Additionaly, the ability of backbone providers to influence the delivery of packets is quite limited in comparison to the 'last mile' provider. The ISP customers immediately connect to, if they choose to set QOS for some type of service from some content provider, will have a great deal more effect on download/upload speeds that backbone providers. That's just how QOS out at the edge works. Yes, backbone providers can influence packet delivery, but not nearly as much as edge providers.
The other problem with allowing provider to prioritize traffic is that once packets traverse provider boundries, all bets are off. Does anyone really think that Verizon/MCI/UUNet will treat AT&T's prioritized packets better or even on par with its own? After all, Verizon's own customers, like maybe giant-company-xyz, is paying to have their traffic prioritized, and all Verizon might have with AT&T is an aggreement that might not be worth as much as $$ from giant-company-xyz. If AT&T never sees all the router configs in Verizon's network, how can they claim that Verizon isn't honoring their QOS?
The internet is more like an ocean than it is a bunch of lakes and canals, and the telcos want to sell good weather and smooth sailing. AT&T will sell Disney, for example, a 'higher tier' of service for their streaming video on their backbone, but unless they can get each and every edge provider to go along, and each and every other entity that runs any kind of peering link at all on the Internet, it won't make as big a difference as they claim. My point is that even if telcos sell prioritization, its likely it won't stack up like they claim, due to the nature of the Internet itself. Then everybody will have to decide how to treat legitimate priority traffic, like 911 for example.
The entire debate looks to me as though it being framed in a misleading way.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
TANSTAAFL.
As I see it there are three big "supply and demand" things on the net:
connectivity, high-transmission-speed, and low-latency.
Connectivity is a no brainer - that's maintenance on the wire going to your house, the cost of billing you, etc. etc.
Transmission speed is easy to understand also: The "pipes" just aren't big enough to let everyone max out their connection all at once. If everyone got on their high-speed connection and started downloading stuff at the same time, things will slow down. This provides an opportunity for the pipe-owners to say "if you want more megabits per minute when it's congested, ante up."
Latency is guarenteed delivery of a particular packet. This also gives the pipe owners an opportunity to say "if you want to guarentee that x% of your bits to go through within t milliseconds, ante up."
The question is who pays - the source, the destination, the person who initiated the conversation, a third party such as an advertiser, or some combination of the above?
The default alternative is a "non-preferred" internet, where everyone suffers equally during times of congestion and services which depend on low-latency like VoIP are forced to either compensate by sending extra bits, thereby making the congestion worse, or services such as VoIP become unusable. Imagine that during your next 911 call.
Another alternative, one favored by the egalitarians, is that bits that need low latency will be tagged as such and given priority over those that aren't. This works as long as everyone respects the priority scheme and as long as the high-priority packets aren't themselves the cause of congestion. Imagine a future September 11, where everone logs on to watch streaming-video newscasts while at the same time using VoIP to call their friends, neighbors, and employers. All the sudden, the high-priority bits are themselves the cause of the congestion, and the TV gets jittery and the audio becomes unusuable for everyone. With a pay scheme, those customers or providers who have, by paying more into the system, declared themselves to be high-priority will continue to funciton while those that don't will be effectively shut off. Of course, emergency services like VoIP calls to 911, will by law get the highest priority and will not have to pay to avoid congestion-related outages.
Personally, I think the egalitarian system works well enough most of the time and it avoids the greed/power/0wnership factor of the pay scheme that it's the best bet for most societies. However, I fear that the greed factor will dominate and within 5 years you will see large-scale pay-for-play for guarenteed-low-latency applications.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I was a Rogers customer for a long time and dupmed them when they started implementing restrictions. I am now with a small local DSL provider and everything works again and the speed is fine.
Meh.
Then how will I download the latest version of Ubuntu?
Meh.
That would assume that "consumers" actually had a choice, but as we all know, competition is a misnomer. With acquisitions and mergers, the number of carriers continues to shrink. And while you might think you can get whatever phone company you want wherever you are, think again. My folks in North Carolina have one carrier available: Sprint. They can't switch phone companies. They use calling cards for long distance, so they don't have to pay Sprint's outrageous fees or deal with their crappy customer service.
Think cable's a good alternative? Bah! I have to use Optimuj Online through Cablevision, because I can't get Comcast (not that I really want to). There's no competition -- in my area its Cablevision or satellite, take your pick.
If you think the Bells and or cable giants stand to lose by restricting service or charging more to some comapnies than others, think again. The customer doesn't have much of a choice in most cases.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
There is a big difference between the roads (regulated by the State) and the information avenues (so far not really regulated all that much): one would be paternalism (a subsidized company: GM and a regulated road), one would be preferentialism.
For me, I don't see a problem with ISPs who give preferential treatment to traffic -- just as your grocery store gets paid for better shelf placement by hundreds of product manufacturers, I think the same should be true for any free market good. In the long run, the market will decide what it favors -- balanced traffic or privately subsidized traffic. As long as the government stays out of the decision and lets the market decide, I think it will work out just fine.
The big problem is where government is already sticking their nose in my business, such as where certain providers get monopoly status (within the village or the state). In this case, there is cause for concern, but that is already the problem with government regulation: it tends to create monopolies out of preferred enterprises and really hurts the competitive market. I'm already starting a village debate over getting rid of the Comcast franchise fee (which gets dropped into hands of my local government). In just 10 weeks I have about 60% of the village angry that they're paying US$4 a month to the village so Comcast can have a monopoly over cable services. We're lucky to have not 2 but 6 different broadband providers in our tiny village of 3000 people, so it isn't a huge concern, but US$48 a year is still a lot to pay so a monopoly can have access.
For those of you with villages that monopolize just one ISP, you need to do what I've done: tell your neighbors and everyone around you that the village needs to stop. There is no reason for monopolized communications anymore, and dumping the monopoly will give you much more choice. The entire state of Illinois is being harmed by the telephone unions who are harping about the idea of opening up the entire market to competition by many ISPs. This is where we have to be really scared, not if one company gives preferential treatment over the data streams.
If there is open competition for ISPs, you will get a choice of service. Maybe it is possible that one big ISP can give preferential bandwidth for a fee to someone, and this will bring your utility costs down. For some, this is a big benefit. I'd rather pay more for equal service, but it should not be mandated by law or by "right." For now, you're using their line, and if you complain that your tax dollars paid for the line to be installed, you should see already that the fault is with the monopolizing effect of telecom regulation, not with the competitive marketplace.
I do believe we'll see a bifurcated Internet of varying ISPS offering varying levels of service for varying prices. This is good, this is how competition figures out what the consumer wants and needs at what price. It also allows the market to change at whim, depending again on what users want and need. Maybe some people want to pay per kilobyte, maybe some people want their bandwidth to their preferred sites subsidized by the sites, who knows? Let the market decide.
is that gradually the internet will become TV. ISPs already provide massively asymmetric connection with far higher down than up speeds. The EULAs already prohibit you from serving content - eventually someone'll start enforcing that. They'll start refusing to relay traffic that might expose them to liability, such as p2p networks and usenet.
I also predict a return to BBS-like behavior based on wireless mesh networks, but that's another post.
If this comes to pass, you all owe me a dollar.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
The problem is that they are NOT opening up a faster lane and charging money to use it. They are artificially slowing down all the other lanes, and charging special rates to access the orriginal speeds.
This really brings out the lust for pure flaming in me...
As net users we pay to be connected to the internet and for the price we pay we get a speed and (in the case of us australia users) a download limit. And as companies groups like google and yahoo pay for their connections and data they send to the internet.
So both groups have paid their dues to those who control the networks...So all of this bullshit (and lets not beat around the bush here) is that network providers want to double dip without raising their existing connection fees. Now the problem with is is that companies will end up biding huge amounts just to use the net - imagine yahoo and google in a auction style fight to exist - the networks demandinig this are just creaming their pants at that thought.
To be honest as a net user paying a fair price for a service I think these people should just fuck right off and I cheer google and others for standing up to them and serving them one.
I ate your fish.
AOL customers sign up for AOL and get the Internet as a side benefit. People connect to ISPs and ISPs connect to other ISPs specifically to have connectivity to whole Internet.
As a matter of fact, AOL was around as Quantum(tm) back when the Internet was Arpanet, and didn't allow ordinary companies to connect.
The phone companies and cable companies make exclusive deals with localities in order to bring wires into your house. Since they tend to have been granted government monopolies, they are more regulated as utilities vs. companies like AOL.
Network latency is a big issue. If AT&T were to put big video servers directly on their backbone such that no one was more than one hop away, they'd be able to offer better service to AT&T customers than anyone else. The article touches on this, saying that that would be ok, but to intentionally slow down someone's packets simply because they haven't paid your protection money is not. I.e. It's possible throught network design to have the same effect as throttling, without actually causing problems.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Your analogy utterly fails to acknowlege reality.
To use the same terms as your analogy:
1: The Internet *was* an ocean that ISP's sold boating subscriptions
2: The ocean contains wealth the ISP's have yet to harvest. That wealth will be extracted by turning the ocean into lakes. Inside each ISP's lake they will sell you the "right" to visit other lakes and see/use other features in the lake. This is the natural outcome of privitazation and "market-based" services.
The other sh*tpipe into your home, cable/satellite TV is the proven model. The "internet" that you have grown familiar with, is but a distant memory.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
diogenes had no need for etorrents and idonkies when he masturbated in the marketplace.
So, it's basically taxpayer-funded one way or another. All infrastructure is.
My book, podcast
This issue must be raised in every town hall across the country where the telecoms are applying for new video over IP cable TV franchises.
If a telecom has applied for a franchise in your town the do this:
Show up at the local council meeting and ask your local government to ask the telecoms what their position is on keeping the internet a level playing field?
This issue needs to work from the local governments up; not from the federal level down. The telecom's money is useless at the local level.
Raising the question of Net Neutrality at the local level will, at the very least, set precedent that this question belongs on the table. Think of what will happen if some small town actually stands up and says: We will not grant you permission to operate a cable TV franchise in our town because we don't like your future plans for the internet.
You need to get involved locally to push this issue forward.
Please see what I am doing in my town, Red Bank NJ, to see how raising these questions can help. Please visit my simple blog at: http://www.redbanktv.org/
-- Tom
On the most recent This Week in Tech, it was mentioned that YouTube is burning a million dollars a month in bandwidth fees (yes, a million). My question is, who are they paying that money to? I'm assuming it's the very same telco that is claiming that they're not making any money off of YouTube...
This guy's the limit!
Common carrier status, in the telco world, affords some protections to carriers regarding the use of their networks. Carriers can not be held responsible for the content that crosses their networks, but in exchange, they must carry each other's content.
Law makers should allow carriers to decide if they want to be "net neutral". After all, businesses don't like to be told what to do, so let businesses decide.
Lawmakers should offer a choice to carriers:
1. Claim common carrier status, and carry all traffic equally.
2. Refuse common carrier status, carry any traffic you like, in any manner you choose, - but be held responsible for all illegal traffic and use of the network.
You can't have it both ways. You can't pick and choose the data that crosses your network, but claim you know nothing about the data.
-ted
I thought it was otherwise known as "Slashdot".
Already we have toll roads. We have examples of where special lanes are set aside for people who are willing to pay more for better service. So how is complaining about internet providers doing the same different?
Simple. By paying $49.95/month for Road Runner rather than $9.99 for Blue Frog, I am already paying a $40/month "toll" to use the fast lane. I've paid for it, now fork it over.
As for paying a "tiered" toll, I'm already there. I picked the middle tier. I get half the bandwidth for $29.95, or double for some other price ($89.95, I think?).
But none of this, nor your toll road system, exacts a penalty for what I might choose to call my destination.
www.wavefront-av.com
Comparing degradation to an Interstate is the wrong way to go. AT&T is not a government entity.
What we should be focusing on:
- Bandwidth is already paid for. The consumer and producer pay their respective Internet Service Providers. This has already been discussed above.
- AT&T (and other telephone companies) get tax breaks, tax incentives, and right-of-way because they are common-carrier and a utility. If AT&T wants to start degrading service to individuals unless a fee is paid, then AT&T should lose all its perqs granted by government. They no longer are willing to provide service to everyone, only a select few. Getting tax breaks and right-of-way on top of charging an extra fee is just fleecing the taxpayer -- the perqs are no longer necessary. The subsidies should stop, and the playing field levelled.
What will happen (network-wise) eventually:
Level3 (and all the other non-telephone companies) will stop peering with AT&T networks because there will no longer be any benefit to Level3. AT&T will soon be isolated, unless they stop degradation.
To all those who don't understand network peering, it is essentially a *free* service large networks undertake to exchange traffic. Of course, this only works when both sides benefit somewhat equally. When Level3 starts taking on extra traffic from AT&T customers and AT&T is taking on less traffic from Level3, do you think Level3 will not care? Of course they will.
Soon, we'll see the Bells' networks turn into notworks. And the Internet will chug right along without them.
We accept your offer...the internet will remain free for the next 10 years...then it is OURS!!!
Sincerely,
The Corporate Powers that be
"What if... The biggest ISP decided to partner with a lot of content providers and limit that content to their customers only? I think it would be called AOL and people would jump ship and go to smaller ISPs.
"Doesn't the same apply here?"
-- missing000
What if, in a few years, a few giant ISPs are the only ones left for 99% of USians to choose from, and they all discriminate by content, protocol, and application? Then where will people "jump ship" to? How will we even get news or viewpoints that don't conform to the commercial interests of the few big ISPs?
Very slowly, I think, if at all.
The telecoms love to play this off as a Regulation vs Non-Regulation issue but they don't really care about that; they just want what's best for them.
The telecoms don't want regulation when it comes to Net Neutrality but as soon as a town says they want to run a municipal WiFi then they run straight to their State or Federal lobbyist to push for regulation against muni-WiFi's
Don't be dragged into a Free Market vs. Too Much Regulation argument. The telecom's don't care about that and you shouldn't either. These issues are purely about what's best for the future of the internet.
-- Tom
The direction of slant is not nearly as important as the degree of slant. NPR and the BBC are not dead center on all things all the time, but they are close enough to piss people off on both sides of an issue. However, when was the last time someone on the far right got pissed off at FOX?
This is why people make fun of fox we know all news has some bias but FOX is so far from center it's basically propaganda.