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Small Cable Groups Seek To Break Net Neutrality
saikou writes "CNet's News.com has a story on the first cable companies openly going against Net Neutrality. As usual, request for equal treatment is labeled as 'special favors', and Google is used as an example of company that should pay for a fast connection to the end user." From the article: "'I think what the phone industry's saying and what we're saying is we've made an investment, and I don't think the government should be coming and telling us how we can work that infrastructure, simple as that,' Commisso said during a panel discussion about issues faced by companies like his, adding, 'Why don't they go and tell the oil companies what they should charge for their damn gas?'"
Google, et al. already pay for their bandwidth! This is just extortion to get their traffic in a higher priority QoS queue.
Trolling is a art,
> Why don't they go and tell the oil companies what they should charge for their damn gas?'
Because the citizens paid for the telecom infrastructure.
Butt out, government, and stop regulating our industry (except when we want you to prevent people from building their own infrastructures, like community- and municipality-based WiFi networks.)
--When you buy proprietary software, you don't get better software. What you get is the right to complain about it.
OK, here's a question.
Let's suppose I order a cool Rubik Cube from eBay and they send it to me thru UPS.
Me = Client
ebay = Server
Rubik cube = data packet
Highway = Internet lines.
Of course, I'm asked for the money to pay the shipping and handling, right?
Right.
So why TF should ebay (or actually the original owner) have to pay for shipping and handling, TOO?
So after years of "Get your unlimited broadband internet" they now realize that maybe there is a limit and want to charge Google.
That is fine if Google is your customer, if not you can't charge them.
Another option is to charge your customers (the people at home) for the usage of google.com. You could even provide them with a detailed bill.
200mb google video 30$
50mb youtube.com 5$
500mb pornlegends.com 50$
Or wait a second didn't we have the pay per bit 10 years ago and everybody switched to "All ways on internet" packages, promoted by the same bastards that now think that they are losing revenue?
What power has law where only money rules.
Yet Another Bad Analogy -
Oil Companies produce their product, deliver it to the customer and sell it.
ISPs take products from other companies and deliver it to the customer.
If I'm requesting more info from Google, Yahoo, etc, I should pay for a higher bandwidth line.
If Google, Yahoo, etc are transmitting more info, they should be paying for a higher bandwidth line (which they do already).
"Why don't they go and tell the oil companies what they should charge for their damn gas?"
While the government doesn't really say what exactly to charge for gas, they do insist that prices are at least fair , just as net access should be. Besides, didn't the federal government give huge amounts to cable companies when they pledged to "build fiber optic to the home" back in the nineties? Or was that the telcos? I didn't get a reference to that, but I remember reading about it.
Is it just me, or does the title 'CEO' these days somehow imply criminal in addition to stupid?
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
The oil companies aren't charging different prices for what type of car/truck you drive or where it's being driven to or from. The oil companies charge by grade of gasoline, just as the cable and phone companies already charge for broadband tiers (speeds).
I pay for Cable Company X to give me internet access, now they start slowing my access to Google, unless Google pays their higher fees. Am I not, as the user, getting screwed for my choice of Cable Company X? Now I get slowed access to the best search engine, and or other big sites (like Amazon, for example). Even if the cable companies paid for the infrastructue, am I, the user, not paying for the use of that structure? I sure won't be happy about paying for a deliberately slowed connection to my favorite sites.
Wireless mesh would really be the the communication dream come true. If we could just get an inexpensive highspeed 10km non-line-of-sight nodes....
:T:R:A:N:S:
we've made an investment, and I don't think the government should be coming and telling us how we can work that infrastructure, simple as that
Of course. And making the investment means you own the results. If the public wanted a say in the Internet, then they should have come up with the investment money to make it possible, instead of leaving it to the private sector.
Oh, wait.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Sure.... the phone and cable companies put a lot of money into installing their lines and normally I'd say they should be free to do whatever they like with them. However, lets look where most of these lines are. Do the phone and cable companies own all of the land where their lines run? Hell no! They got an easements from the government and that gives the government some say in how these lines are used. If the cable and phone companies don't like that they can damn well buy all of the bloody land that their lines run through!
I'm waiting for my ISP (currently, BellSouth) to do this. I will take all of my business Net service (a decent amount... a lot more than a residential service) elsewhere. All it's going to take to kill this is for people to be aware, and for people to be willing to vote with their wallets. I know that I am. I'm even willing to pay more.
Welcome to capitalism. The government doesn't have the right to tell companies how to practice their business. The argument dismissing common carrier status went out the window when the government decided they had the right to phone tap anyone without any authorisation.
Common Carriers were supposed to be content agnostic -- meaning that all content (phone calls, faxes, anything passing over the phone line) would be treated equally and the contents would not be examined by the carrier. To deviate from this standard would mean that the carriers were responsible for the content carried by their network, including incriminating evidence that would make the carrier legally liable. The common carrier status protects the carrier as much as the individual subscribers.
But now with the willy-nilly wire taps, and complete lack of accountability in the government, carriers now believe they can do what they like with traffic on their networks and still not be accountable. And who would blame them for believing this?
So now you have carriers who feel like they control not only the networks but also the content on those networks in a responsibility free environment, and they will do what all corporations do: grab for da money. Why not charge extra for "premium" (read: basic utilities of the net) services? Sure, it's immoral. But it's also a capitalist society. We all know that the people who can afford broadband can also afford an extra 10$/mo to access stuff they used to access for free. And they're only there to feed the corporate beast anyway.
I can't fault these people for wanting to make more money. But if they think they can have their cake and eat it too, then they will be facing lots of lawsuits from individuals who's children have been exposed to goatse.cx because those same carriers (now content providers) didn't filter their content. The circle of life continues.
Not to be a troll, just Devils Advocate. What do you think would happen if Cox "blocked" Google. Do you think the vast majority of Cox users would care enough to switch ? Do you think they have the ability to switch ?
To me this is scarier than any MS monolopy. With MS I have alternatives. I have no other choice for highspeed other than RoadRunner. I cannot get DSL, and have only one provider. What happens tomorrow if they decide to throttle back Gmail, and throttle up Hotmail ??
This is something that needs more press.
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-Kurt
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
The remarks indicated it's not only the nation's largest broadband players, both in the cable and the telecommunications sectors, that have voiced public opposition to what they refer to as unprecedented governmental regulation of the Internet. They've said repeatedly that without evidence of a problem, there's no need for new laws.
Net neutrality, also called network neutrality, is the philosophy that network operators should not be allowed to prioritize content and services--particularly video--that come across their pipes. Proponents have launched a campaign to enact detailed regulations barring such practices, and so far they've won over some congressional Democrats.
Network operators counter that they deserve the right to charge premium fees to bandwidth hogs in order to offset their vast investments in infrastructure and to ensure the quality and security of their products. Mediacom has made $1.7 billion in capital investments over the past decade, according to Commisso.
And so I return to my premise that it's time to nationalize the communications infrastructure in this country. Declare it an important national resource, vital to the safety and security of US citizens, and then take it away from these greedy pinheads. Create a department to oversee telecommunications infrastructure and force these companies to bid on maintenance contracts for the various regions of the country.
True, that means goverment oversight, and the government is an iffy proposition at best, but it's a damned sight better than allowing the telecoms to run amok and ramp up the prices for content we as customers want. In the end, they'd do well to listen to customers, before they don't have any.
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The government (DARPA) invented the internet--using public funds.
Federal law protects common carriers. In exchange for that legal protection, the public has every right to require "net neutrality." If the communications companies want to run their networks their own way, then they must give up all the legal protections they currently enjoy. They must become directly and fully responsible for the content of every message sent accross their networks. The RIAA is drooling.
Cthulhu for President! Why settle for the lesser evil?
Actually, they do tell oil companies how much to charge for gas: "whatever you change the other guy". Filling in lawn mower and Ford Ranger costs the same, per galon. You end up paying more for the Ranger, because it uses more. So I see nothing wrong with the government telling cable and phone companies the same thing, they can charge whatever they want per mmegabyte whether it's Google or C-list blog.
Aside from the end users getting the raw deal (as usual), I think it would be hilarious for these money-grabbing bastards to get a harsh lesson in just how dependant they are on these sites. Case in point: I personally do not know anyone, not one single person, that doesn't use one or more of Google's services in some way on a regular basis.
Not trying to say everyone does of course, but the amount of people that do is large enough that any ISP that attempts to mess with them like this faces a giant backlash and loss of business as I can't see Google giving in to this extortion.
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
I work for a small cable company, and I'd get skinned alive by my customers if I aggressively lowered the QoS of google et al. That said, I don't understand what this whole debate is about. It's only the peer-to-peer and big-file-http traffic that causes any sort of spike in our traffic. If we were to charge Google for their traffic, it wouldn't amount to anything next to, say, iFilm/YouTube/planet(quake/halflife/etc) or local companies' ftpds and httpds that their employees connect to from home. Presumably the former couldn't pay for a reliable connection, and assuredly the latter would jump ship.
Anyone who actually implements anything other than net neutrality is shooting themselves in the foot.
If you support Net Neutrality then you should be making your case locally. If your existing cable company's cable franchise is up for renewal or if AT&T or Verizon are applying to operate a cable TV franchise in your town then you should be asking them about Net Neutrality.
If they won't address the issue then you should press your local officials to reject their application.
If the local cable application goes away then we need to make Net Neutrality part of the discussion when state or national franchise applications take place.
If your town disagrees with a company's business practice then you shouldn't do business with them.
I'm pushing these issues locally. You can see how at: http://www.redbanktv.org/
Someone needs to just come right out and say it. The telcos and cable providers want it both ways. They want their customers to keep right on paying for service, and they want Internet sites/businesses to reach those customers.
In other words, they want to sell the bandwidth that their customers already pay for twice, once to the customer and one to the sites that the customer visits.
They want to sell you as a "product" to vendors, and they want you to pay for the privilige of being sold.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Content providers are already paying for some level of bandwidth on their end.
Consumers are already paying for some level of bandwidth on their end.
Bandwidth purchasers should be able to use what they are paying for - period.
If the pipeline owners are not making enough money because people are using what they are paying for, then they need to raise their prices.
I don't have a problem with different tiers of service offerings. I have this already at home - there are two or three levels of speed I could pay my ISP for. I imagine Google has similar options.
The inconsistency here is that the pipeline owners charge for tiers of service, but they don't guarantee any level of service - it's "best effort". If they want to start charging for specific levels of service and holding people's feet to the fire, then it better go both ways. If I'm paying for the "gold" level of service I better get it.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
> Why don't they go and tell the oil companies what they should charge for their damn gas?' Some states do set a minimum as to what a gas station can charge. In an attempt to keep the little guys in business the state of Wisconsin has a 5% minimum that gas stations are required to charge over the wholesale price at which they purchase it at. In the city of Milwaukee this is a big issue because a lot of the little guys are more than willing to use gas as a loss leader to get you into their convenience store.
If the ISPs get to decide what to do with "their" infrastructure even if it was originally paid for by taxes, then we should get to decide what to do with our property, even if it's on the "right of way"!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I'm waiting for my ISP (currently, BellSouth) to do this.
Don't wait for it, let them know beforehand.
Tell them *WHY* you think that double-dipping is wrong.
1.) People that stay connected continually.
2.) People sharing files (big ones)
3.) People downloading bigger and bigger files, since hard drive space is el-cheapo.
4.) Myriads of video sites popping up everywhere.
So, rather than your little ISP eat it's own shit over your extravegant downloading habits, or jacking up your bill, they are trying to shunt this bandwidth hurt over to the major players who supply it. I know, it's bullshit. But, the only alternative I see, scary thought, ISP's being forced to go back to some sort of "pay for what you use" service, which works for major ISP's and backbones, but joe consumer whore won't swallow it because he would find out that his $40/month cable service really costs the cable company $80/month once you figure in his 30 gig/month porn downloading habit. I know a guy that works for a major cable internet provider, and I've got it on good authority that their CMTS is over subscribed, and their connection to the world in the are we live in is VERY overburdened, but they just can't seem to afford an upgrade.
Dunno, just my 2 cents.
Windows has more viruses because linux has more virus coders.
What more is there to this?
Billions of dollars a year in extortion--I mean, revenue--for the telecommunications companies?
That's really all there is to it. They've figured out that they can't maintain the sort of growth that they've had over the past decade or so (because there's nowhere to expand to), so now they're trying to figure out ways to squeeze more money out of their existing customers. Because even if you don't realize it, everyone using the Internet is an indirect customer of the backbone providers. You pay your ISP, your ISP maybe pays another ISP, that ISP pays for a connection to the backbone. They get their tithe, it just goes via your local provider first.
And there's really no way to rake in the dough like making people pay for something twice. Here's what the backbone providers want: the source of the packets pays for access (a portion of which makes its way up the chain to them), the destination of the packets pays for access (also trickles up to them), and the source and the destination both pay directly for increased QoS if they don't want said packets to spend a few seconds in the purgatorial "low-rent buffer" on their way across the network.
It's just a protection racket, but without any of that messy kneecap-smashing business.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I rest my case.
These cable companies are being a bit shortsighted. This greed is going to come back to bite them in the ass. If they give up their Net Neutrality, all of the sudden they are going to have a responsibility for the traffic that goes across their network. This means the MPAA and RIAA will be lining up to sue them, they will have to put a stop to 'pirate' traffic and customers will leave them in droves. Many of the people I know only pay for high speed Internet because of 'illegal' activities.
Parents will start suing because little Johnny was looking at porn, terrorist victims will be suing because al-qaeda used the network, joe six-pack will sue because he got screwed on the time machine he bought on ebay, Grandma Johnson will sue because she sent all her money to Nigeria.
People do a lot of stupid stuff on the Internet. Giving up Common Carrier status could very well result in ISP's losing immunity for third party content and open Pandora's Box.
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We live in a political era where you have to show you are electable. "Electable" means being willin to say anything to win, and to say it in a way that shows no twinge of self-consciousness, much less shame. Politicians that show any kind of discomfort when lying and posturing are considered "stiff".
In other words if you don't show sufficient hypocrisy, you aren't considered credible.
We don't want visionaries, we want politicians who talk about how they have a vision. Actual vision is a sure route to ridicule. Mike Royko labelled Jerry Brown "Governor Moonbeam" because given California's size and propensity for natural disasers, Brown thought the state should have its own emergency communication satellite. In 1978 the idea was visionary, which in political terms equals "kook". Twenty years later it was reality.
Al Gore saw the potential of allowing the Internet to become a piece of national infrastructure for commerce, not just some obscure academic/military network. That took vision. Therefore, it's sure proof that politically speaking he's a kook.
No we don't want actual visionaries in office, any more than we want actual conservatives or actual religious people or actual war heroes. Content distracts the label on the box. No, what we want politicians who are resolute in their rhetoric but biddable to the will of their masters.
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Cox wouldn't have customers very long if none of them could get to Google. This doesn't address the real goal of defeating net neutrality.
We should be talking about Pipes, not oil. IIRC, common carrier rules apply to the owners of pipes; they have to be neutral about who is allowed to buy for oil-width. If internet access had been defined as what it is -- a *communications medium, rather than an "information service" -- the same carrier rules would already apply to it. I think net neutrality people should focus their efforts on that. If it is an "information service" you would expect service's provider to be the source of the information I obtain through it. It is not that; when my sister sends me email she is the provider of whatever information is in it.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
So, what we have here is a big fat pity party where everyone and their grab ass brother is trying to get into the "screw the end user" game so they can make more money? Wow, they're all turning into the RIAA and the petroleum companies!
Yes. That's pretty much it. I think your oil company analogies are fundamentally flawed, as are all analogies drawn between electronic content distribution and distribution of a physical good: although oil is controlled in large part by a cartel, at the end of the day it is a nonrenewable resource. "Content" is not; I can copy Disney's Fantasia and give it to as many people as I want, and when I'm done, we all still have it. It's tough doing that with gasoline (though don't we all wish). Basically, DRM tries to make physical-goods distribution models work with strings of numbers, with mixed results. Or alternately, even if Disney decides to take their ball and go home, it's not as if "content" is in short supply, or is in any way a limited resource -- in fact, I would argue that the supply of content always exactly equals demand, no more and no less. People make content basically out of thin air when there is sufficent demand, and don't make it when there's not. The distribution companies have tried to create and perpetuate an artifical scarcity in order to maintain demand, and it's not working very well.
But this is all sort of unrelated to the issue at hand (tiered internet). The point here is simply one where the backbone providers and telcos/ISPs have turned loose a few MBAs to try and figure out how to increase revenue. Their solution is, in the absence of real competition, to try and extort people into paying for the same thing (transfer of bits from point A to B in a timely manner) two or three times. On the receiving end (direct payment to the end-user's ISP), the transmitting end (via however Google/Yahoo/etc. pays the bills, i.e. advertising), and in transit (by twisting Google's or the end-user's arm for increased QoS).
From a dirty business standpoint, it's like they took a look at the business model of the RIAA's member companies and decided they'd try to take it to a whole new level.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."