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Game Theory Computer Model Backs Net Neutrality
Stu writes "'A world without net neutrality is one devoid of intellectual development' said Sir Tim Berners Lee in a presentation to congress last week. Well, now there's a computer model that uses game theory to back that forecast up. Developed at the University of Florida, the model shows that everyone loses if the IPs get their way — even, eventually, the IPs."
I wonder if the simulation takes into account the effect of consumers switching to the content provider that pays the fee, and the effect this would have on the amount of content consumers have to choose from.
Logically, yes. But ISPs are a finite group, and the smaller the group, the easier it is for them claim that the extortion is the best for their buisness. If enough ISPs take this route, customers begin to accept it as normal. Of course, the ISPs that would want to gain a larger share of the customers are the ones likely to not extort content providers, which usually means the smaller ISPs. Content providers will be slow to switch if they can make up the extortion in different way; none of them will want to switch until the smaller ISPs grow large enough to offset losses. In the mean time, however, we all suffer.
Demented But Determined.
You must be too young to remember Ma Bell...
I agree with the other guy. Breaking up "Ma Bell" was dumb, all it did was create lots of little regional monopolies. Didn't like the service? Well, you could always move across the country. Far more good was done by forcing the phone companies to allow people to buy their own phones from anyone who made a compliant phone.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
You are of course aware that there was only one brand of phone that worked back then since Ma Bell intentionally ran their circuits out of spec to ruin the hardware people bought? Naturally their own hardware was designed with this in mind. Been to a store shopping for a phone lately? That is but one lasting impact of the Ma Bell breakup inspite of the illconcieved republican deregulation of everything. Fine, you want to be raped, cause ignorance is awesome, and you've got a lifetime supply. Well I don't want to be raped. So how about we have resonable government regulations that make me and other sensible people happy. In return we'll donate some of our free time building a variety of ass-raping robots for you and people like you. Everyone wins. We'll even sell them to you so you don't have to feel like it's communism.
Playing with spelling and grammar cleverly are also marks of being a geek. 1337speke and puns are examples of those markers you mentioned.
Those only work against a background of correct spelling and grammar. It's not clever to break the rules if you don't know what the rules are.
I have often wondered why this is an issue at all... On my POTS line, I can call anyone, anytime, as long as they have a phone. In the beginning, they charged based on distance. Long distance calls cost more, but as the infrustructure has expanded, the concept of distance is mostly meaningless. Never did the telecos charge based on whom I was calling. How is the net different? I pay my isp for my internet connection, Google pays bigbucks for theirs. Why should the telecos get any extra because google is using 100% of the badwidth for which they have already paid? This is extortion, plain and simple. Google: "We need to get another OC128" Telecos: "Well that will cost you $FOO for the connection, AND if you want ALL your traffic, it will cost you $BAR per month to ferry your traffic across our network safely. Otherwise, who knows what could happen..." And the telecos are trying to legalize it.
The problem is that pricing has been pushed down to the point where it is almost a losing game to win market share. That's nice for the consumer and it was nice that all this service could be provided without much hardware investment.
That was great when the connections were not being used much.
The issue today is who is going to pay. And nobody wants to just raise end-user prices. While that might be the fairest way to do it, it would shrink market share and be a shakeup for the entire ISP industry.
We could have government subsidies pay for it all, as is mostly done in other countries to keep prices low. That means taxes pay for cheap Internet service. So the people that don't have it have to pay - not so fair.
Someone came up with the bright idea of charging the other end. Google is paying almost nothing for their connection (check prices on OC-192 connections) and is making billions off the people looking there. Maybe they could pay more?
Of course, making Google, CBS Sports and CNN pay more for their connections just comes back around to the consumers anyway. There is no escaping that prices are going up. The consumer is going to end up paying, one way or another. The only question is how many middlemen are involved.
While I applaud the advocacy, the bad new is "intellectual development" is not what the telcos and media conglomerates have in mind.
Exactly. It's profit maximization they're after.
If they think they can make Google pay to serve their customers, they'll have a customer revolt over not being able to access Google. Google's packets are more valuable than those originating at a leaf-node ISP. Leaf-node ISPs will find themselves paying Google's ISP, not Google paying them, to get their users access to Google. They'll create a money flux across the network that won't change the status quo of their profits. It'll just be alternating currency between ISPs rather than direct currency profiting them: A¢, not D¢.
(I'd have actual cent signs there if this forum would allow the Unicode character CENT SIGN (U+00A2) as a numerical entity (), named entity (), or literal character (), yet none of those come through in my Previews.)
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
As an English prof, I'd say that every second you spend worrying about grammar is a second you aren't worrying about the depth / development / support of an idea.
Focusing more on ideas than the clear conveyance of ideas would indicate that maybe you should have been a philosophy professor. Accuracy and precision are our best tools to make ourselves understood.
We are all just people.
we are dropping Service from ISP
Seems like a lot of businesses are positively allergic to the word "service" anyway. I remember chuckling years ago when flying and listening to the speech by the chairman of some airline (cough Continental cough) welcoming me onboard and how proud they were of the PRODUCT they were offering me. Yep, transporting someone across the US - a product, not a service. Got to LOVE them marketing people and how they twist things around like weasels. God forbid it were a SERVICE because if I insisted that I wasn't satisfied I'd have a hard time showing that I'm right. But now I have the option of taking my PRODUCT back if I'm not happy with it...
I'm not surprised if they ditch the S in ISP, not surprised at all.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
They talk as if we have a lot of choice of which providers we can pick from, well most people don't.
This whole thing of charging Content Providers more to built better pipes is BS. Thats what the whole tax cut for ISP's was about, to build better pipes and to save money by the tax cuts.
As we all know cable internet is much faster then phone copper. And to update copper they need too put in fiber, which cost us.
Cable doesn't have that issue. It does cost a bit more, but you get much better speeds.
So what if all the ISP's started charging CP's? Cable would make a killing with no return to the consumer, DSL wouldn't get that much of an upgrade, not for awhile. Even if DSL co's did put in more fiber to the neighborhood DSLAMs, they still cant match what Cable can do.
So its a Loose Loose for both sides. Cable, no better speeds, DSL, a little better speeds... when ever they get around to it, and not that much better of speeds.
From what ive been told is that they(ISP's) need a better backbone, and better pipes within the ISP. For the copper lines they really need to have a damn good plan in place.
It derails the train of thought for those who are trying to browse quickly. A random letter would be easier to filter, but for "loose" I have to check that the literal interpretion is not possible before discarding it. I'd appreciate the correct version, especially from an "editor".
Furthermore, it isn't lost seconds that we're talking about. It's a case of learning it once and getting it right thereafter. No revision required.
I hereby loose you on the Slashdot hordes to critique their depth and development.
Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others. -Groucho Marx
I had to read that sentence three times before it made any sense to me at all. I'm not making fun of you. I'm not even criticizing your apparent lack of proofreading. Comments are closer to casual conversation than essays: nobody expects perfection. But if I submit a story that I want to be shown on the front page of a website that gets hundreds of thousands of hits a day, I'm damn well going to read my submission over a few times.
I have to say, though, I do think it's a little nuts that literally every comment on this story I've read so far is about the spelling error (or tangents of same). I guess all the Slashdotters who aren't spelling Nazis are out enjoying themselves on this fine Friday night?