Slashdot Mirror
Net Neutrality Debate Crosses the Atlantic
smallfries writes "The network neutrality debate has raged on in the States for some time now. Now broadband providers in the UK have banded together to threaten the BBC, who plans to provide programming over 'their' networks. The BBC is being asked to cough up to pay for bandwidth charges, otherwise traffic shaping will be used to limit access to the iPlayer. 'As more consumers access and post video content on the internet - using sites such as YouTube - the ability of ISPs to cope with the amount of data being sent across their networks is coming under increasing strain, even without TV broadcasters moving on to the web. Analysts believe that ISPs will be forced to place stringent caps on consumers' internet use and raise prices to curb usage. Attempts have been made by players in the industry to form a united front against the BBC by asking the Internet Service Providers' Association to lead the campaign on the iPlayer issue. However, to date, no single voice for the industry has emerged. I thought that the monthly fee we pay already was to cover access ... but maybe it only covers the final mile and they need to be paid twice to cover the rest of the journey."
I'm going to hunt down the relevant addresses and start sending letters. The BBC pay for their bandwidth usage. I pay for mine. At what point are the ISPs getting short-changed in this equation?
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
The internet is expensive to run. Someone has to pay. That's all that's the concern. It's going to become much the same way television was turned into an Ad waste land. Someone has to pay. Someone has to pay. Lemme repeat several times.
The sooner everything uses encryption, the sooner this type of idiocy will be impossible.
Encrypt every protocol. If it's a legacy protocol, pass it over an encrypted tunnel. Governments can't censor and corporations can't selectively extort when to them all bits are just bits.
Bandwidth is a commodity. Encrypt, and these people will have to treat it like one rather than abusing their monopoly/cartel positions to implement artificial restrictions and surcharges.
I do not understand the idea of random networks charging content providers for their bandwidth.
I already pay *my* ISP for my bandwidth.
Content providers already pay *their* ISPs for their bandwidth.
My ISP wants to charge the content providers for delivering their content?
So that means my intraweb tube becomes free for me, right?
The article doesn't go into much detail, but from what I've read the deal goes something like this.
BBC to ISP/IPP == Hi I have an idea for a website/web based product let's hash out the details.
ISP == oh yeah, great send that money right over here. We're the internet we can do anything.
ISP/IPP actually looks over the details... wait.. we'll be needing more money if you want that service we just agreed to.
That's not right, if a company cannot keep it's part of the bargain they should not have made the deal in the first place.
This reminds me of an ISP I dealt with a few years ago when DSL was just gaining popularity. My predecessor made a deal that we would get free unlimited bandwidth for the school I worked at, in exchange for free classes for some of their employees. After I took over we went from about 3GB a month to close to 25GB. The ISP called and wanted to renegotiate. I said no, unlimited is what the contract says, unlimited is what I'm getting. You may be able to limit the speed at which I download, but you can't limit the amount of time I'm hitting that at 100%.
They did so, and I started removing their employees from the classes. Sometimes in the middle of the class.
Linux Zealots: Smarter than Mac Zealots, but still zealots.
The ISPs screwed themselves over. They let the consumer pay some amount for a specific amount of bandwidth. However, they can't actually guarantee that consumer that bandwidth anymore. For example, cable has various hubs, each with bandwidth that is split amongst its users (usually a town or city will share a number of hubs depending on its size). They told its users they'll get x amount of bandwidth, but they based that amount on the bad assumption that everyone won't be online at the same time. They severely underestimated how drawn to online content the world would be so now they're getting flooded with users and not enough bandwidth to handle it. Instead of blaming themselves, they'll blame the content providers and say thats why they can't handle the traffic anymore. The content providers are somehow unfairly causing too much traffic for them to handle. The problem is, the ISPs promised the world more than they could actually deliver and now they're trying to shift the cost onto someone else. Each side pays for its bandwidth (consumers & content providers), but now the ISPs are actually being burdened with upholding their side of the deal and somehow that's unfair.
The ISPs never should have promised the amount of bandwidth they're offering, and charging for, if they can't actually deliver it.
...perhaps the ISP's should complain to Sky/Virgin since many people are now viewing Sky news reports through the
website portal rather than through the TV channel.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I pay, I pay $50 give or take every month to connect to the internet. I pay, I pay $24.99 every month to keep my site up so other people can look at it with their paid internet connection. Someone has to pay, but I guess the money I pay every month doesn't count toward that goal does it.
Linux Zealots: Smarter than Mac Zealots, but still zealots.
There is something i am clearly missing here and I hope one of you kind sirs could enlighten me on:
The content provider (youtube/bbc) pay for UPSTREAM bandwidth with their ISP. This covers the costs of users coming to the site and downloading data.
Then the users pay for DOWNSTREAM bandwidth with their ISP. This covers the cost of the isp downloading data from the content provider's isp.
Is someone getting money from two directions there AND wanting more ? Even if there is no overlap of payments for costs, etc, based on the above two lines it seems like everyone's getting paid for providing the bandwidth ? Or is it the question of ISPs saying "yes, you pay for bandwidth (upstream or downstream) but you are using too much of it and we'd like to charge you more for some of the services which use up too much of the bandwidth you paid for ?
Attempts have been made by players in the industry to form a united front against the BBC by asking the Internet Service Providers' Association to lead the campaign on the iPlayer issue.
It's not a united front against the BBC, although I'm sure they'd like to portray it that way.
It's a united front against their users who want to pay for "unlimited access" and actually receive same.
This is monopolistic behaviour. From the Reg (talking to Lord Currie, chairman of OFCOM):
They'd better stop trying to strong-arm the BBC into paying for service, anyone who disagrees with these attacks on the free market should give OFCOM a ring. I've contacted them before, aside from being very informative/helpful, the number of complaints has an effect on whether they think they should intervene (assuming the complaint is valid of course).
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
Power plants band together to force GE into paying a surcharge on their light bulbs. Spokesperson for the electricity industry said "These bulbs will suck up a sizable portion of our power generation."
The BBC isn't trying to get anything for free here, they pay for their internet connection and their consumers pay for there's as well, the ISP shouldn't expect anything beyond that. Threatening to throttle traffic from a particular site unless the owners pay up amounts to nothing more than extortion and it's a shame that the greedy ISP owners who think differently won't get treated to the same punishment that Vinnie the Protection Racket Thug would get for the same crime.
It's us vs 'them' people, and there are more of us than there are of 'them' so let's vote to take what 'they' have got! Because 'they' aren't us and no one will ever vote to take what you have*!
*Civil liberties and privacy excepted.
Now we are in an era of "inter-BBS" where the ISPs charge you but also let you browse the others "BBS". Since ISPs offer to host websites I'm considering them as the modern BBS. Now the problem is that some users are becoming competitors to these ISPs by providing services and thus are a new breed of "BBS" and they are making money instead of the ISP having full control. But who are managing the wires outside? The ISPs. So do we give all the rights to the ISPs or do we now declare that the Internet's hardware be owned by governments so that all of the citizens pay for the services?
Like the others have said someone has to pay the bill. If the users start to make more money than the ISPs then they should make sure parts of their earnings go into the development of the Internet right? Which is partly why the ISPs are currently bitching about all this.
I strongly believe the governments should invest and build the physical foundations and rent it to the users. Henceforth the Internet would be a service made by the people for the people.
I agree that this would go against the anarchistic Internet many of us wants but for upload and download speeds and efficiency of resources this would be great. I'm of course assuming that bureaucracy will not kill the whole process.
Anyway, if you really want privacy there will always be Tor networks and the old school BBS right?
This is flamebait and the original post wasn't?
If it's such a freaking concern to the ISPs of the world why don't they just come up with a few colo (coloation) agreements for those companies that they claim are using too much bandwidth. They ISPs are complaining that youtube et al are using too much bandwidth and I would like us to remember that according to This article Windows Update is using quite a bit of bandwidth itself. One has to wonder why MS isn't being targeted by the ISPs.
load "$",8,1
As people have mentioned, right now the ISP's are essentially double dipping. The content providers pay for upstream, and the consumers pay for the same except downstream. So basically they want to triple dip? Have both parties pay for the same bandwidth and also collect a portion of revenues? Seems like some kind of con job to me.
As far as caps and shaping etc, look at South Korea. There are literally millions of people uploading and downloading gigabytes individually every single day to "web drives" such as fileguri, oudisk, and ed2k services like pruna. They do massive video conferencing, online banking, video on demand, streaming radio. They can do this because the infrastructure can support it. They also have dmb, which is basically h264 video streamed over terrestial or satellite to portable devices. On top of this they're also rolling out massive wifi/wimax/wibro capabilities. I can't speak for europe, but as far as the US goes, where has all the taxes, both directly taken from billing and indirectly through government subsidies gone? Where is the fiber to the curb that's been promised for years going on decades?
Frauds.
Yes, providers will have to raise prices or impose stringent caps.
This is what happens when people start trying to use a hugely oversold service.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
I know it's flamebait, but I'll bite.
Yes I guess I am a prick. I expect to receive the goods and or services for which I have and continue to pay for.
$75,000 worth of free education, with up to another $25K is not nearly enough to pay for such spectacular service.
15 times through both the Sun Solaris admin, and Cisco CCNP programs with 5 more yet to be named students is not enough to pay. I should certainly think of the poor ISP that doesn't make enough money. I should certainly think of their operating costs. I should certainly think that when I don't get what I pay for; the other guy must certainly be right.
FUCK YOU... that felt good. Let me say it again, FUCK YOU
For what it's worth, I'm no longer at that school. Poor business decisions caused it to go bankrupt.
Poor business decisions like trading seats for goods and or services with companies who expect to be able to renegotiate.
And I'm a jerk, for allowing my students access to the internet so they could do various research on the net. (that made up the majority of the extra bandwidth, could not have possibly been my addiction to the distro of the month club circa 2002), for allowing remote access for students, so they can access network shares from home, for creating labs that could both access and be accessed from anywhere on the web. I'm a prick for giving the students what they paid for and more without asking for more money from them (yes we did hike the prices a bit after, but we didn't go to current students and ask for more.)
Oh, anonymous coward. I guess you "got" me. Get me fired from a job I don't have anymore. Where I was underpaid, and certainly over appreciated. Next time though, why not post as yourself instead of hiding behind the mask of anonymity.
and if you want to get me fired from my current job... good luck.
Linux Zealots: Smarter than Mac Zealots, but still zealots.
Are you having problems in your dysfunctional gay marriage??
This has nothing to do with TV companys get a "free ride" and everything to do with slimey telco's over subscribing their network, and then lieing about it.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Well, it's actually quite simple.
EVERY ISP will "overbook" their bandwidth, and bet on users NOT using it to the fullest all the time, hence being able to get away with it.
Do you honestly believe an ISP expected you, as a "home user", to use up your full bandwidth 24/7 a couple of years ago when they started offering "cheap, unlimited broadband" ?
Hell no, they expected you, on average, to use up about as much as they priced the "cheap package" for, because (they believed) there wouldn't be that much data you could get over the internet that might possibly be interested in on a daily basis.
The problem is that nowadays, people are more likely to use up more bandwidth for longer periods of time... be it a torrent download, internet TV/radio or just old regular (but large) downloads.
So now, the people who "run" the show find they can no longer get away with their overbooking... and instead of "getting more bandwidth" themselves, are going after the people who are likely to generate that increased bandwidth demand.
Pure, simple, unadulterated greed and lack of forethought. That's what's going on. Nothing else.
Know what the flipside is ?
You, the consumer, ACTUALLY paying for what the bandwith you use up is worth, at the ISP side... plus their cut, of course, you can't expect an ISP to run on charity, or do you ?.
In most cases, this would translate in heavily increased rates compared to those you're used to now.
Or, you know, we can always go back to the "pay for traffic" model. That would work just fine... but then again, nobody would take it.
Of course, there's always the alternative of ISPs actually getting a lot more cheap broadband, but that requires infrastructure and indvestment, and in any profit-driven economy, this is not all that good for bussiness, especially when the current model "works just fine" (for them).
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
Since smallfries has chosen to politicize his explanation, I'll give you a better one. It's very simple. Your ISP doesn't have the bandwidth to deliver the BBC via internet to all it's customers. So it either has to charge you more and use the money to improve its infrastructure, or put BBC packets at a lower priority so they don't swamp the network and bring it to its knees. Or it can make charges more fine grain, since it's current prices reflect the fact that no one was using the bandwidth, so it was a good marketing tool to say you had it. Under this approach, the network doesn't change, but you pay more if you think you need the bandwidth to watch BBC.
DivX uses the Advanced Simple profile (which would fall in the first of the above list). And yet MPEG-4 can be expanded to use sprites/panorama, animated textures, 2-D animated meshes, 3d-Meshes, natural sound... and you thought DivX was state-of-the-art. <nelson>ha hah!</nelson>
but the Internet is fundamentally based on sharing -- it makes
efficient use of connections because everything is packetized
and packets for all users intermix. There can't possibly be
enough connectivity for every end user connection to be used
at full capacity all the time. There's some oversubscription,
but I don't think that's the real issue.
I think the problem is that the telcos who now dominate the
Internet (at least in the US) envy the cable company business
model, in which both viewers and content providers (generally)
are charged. It's much like the phone model, in charging both ends.
This is a simple matter of greed.
AT&T is more greedy than a beta wolf.
This so-called "net neutrality" is bad business.
it's nothing but greed. There is no other way to describe it. Unless you like "double-dipping"
These few network owners want to charge a premium for allowing commercial traffic on "their" networks.
Everyone pays a subscription fee for accessing the internet. They pay based upon how much bandwidth or throughput they use.
Network owners have peering agreements to share network access. These peering agreements are all based in the same facility and some times in the same room.
Net Neutrality: treating every packet as equal.
What they want: denying or delaying packets whose owners don't pay the ransom.
They're using their grammar skills there.
You will never live this down. I will get you fired by ruining your Internet reputation. You messed with the wrong person.
You do realize you just described a chicken and egg problem. True if your site didn't exist there would be no content to view. But then if there was no connection between you and the consumer, then for all intents and purposes your site wouldn't exist.
Next thing you know they'll want slashdotted content providers to pay for excess bandwidth.
So it's just a simple matter of which side is greedy and which is not? So Google is for Net Neutrality out of the kindness of their heart...not because they don't want the increased costs for themselves? Oh I see. Some companies are greedy and others are not. That is why companies increase prices or decrease limit supply. It's simply about greed. That settles everything. Right....
Creative Demolition
Look how many governments are banning incandescent bulbs: Australia, The Netherlands, California, Ontario, etc.
An outright ban bothers me.
-Stu
Fortunately it seems unlikely they'll be able to make this stick. Nowadays, at last, there's some degree of choice of broadband providers for most people in the UK. In fact, usually more choices for ISP than there are television companies. So who needs who most ? If my ISP won't do BBC, it's not likely I'll be dropping the BBC for some other station. I'll be dropping the ISP.
Wow you know there are better models available now, some even come with their own remote control
12 year old trolls are always amusing in what they think they can do. You are insignificant, get over it and go back to school yourself.
And how's that any different than say industrial customers paying more for the demands they place on the power grid? As someone else already pointed out the mistake was selling the concept of "unlimited" to the consumer. When even geeks can't figure out that anything physical isn't going to be unlimited. Why should one be surprised at the average joe? The only problem is that it's much harder to sell a service that has limits. People don't like limits.
BTW I notice one of the tags is "greed". Anyone brave enough to tackle the concept of greed when it comes to the consumer? Didn't think so.
I think it would be fantastic for a website or group of websites (of adequate size) to put their foot down and cut off any ISP who QOSes them and asks for money. I think at that point if the site was used enough the ISPs home subscribers would either raise a big enough stink or just switch away.
It would really need the right situation but it could set a new precedent and make ISPs realize that their service is useless if the sites their uses use do not preform well.
If the Government had stayed out of the cable/phone company issue, a monopoly would have happened anyway.
Or do you intend upon arguing that several different companies would have laid their own fiber networks across an entire city?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
And it costs. To keep prices competitive ISP's have got into the habit of charging reasonable, low flat-rate fees. Consumers like this and everyone was happy. But the way they achieved this was not by charging consumers what it would cost to use the allotted bandwidth constantly, because most users don't typically. This way they could provide service for more users less expensively.
Of course the trouble is now that broadband has become increasingly common and bandwidth use is continuously rising I suspect ISP's don't know what to do to keep from saturating their networks (and incurring the added cost). So they are looking for a way out and I guess changing the pricing model for the consumer is probably not a very appealing idea. Not that I think this is anything other then sleazy, but I do see that the problems is a little more complicated then ISP's trying to get paid 3 ways.
We need cheaper, higher bandwidth infrastructure. Because of the shifts in technology this problem isn't going to go away (as it is, it's going to get much worse) and ISP's will fail trying to shift costs in this manner. So who will absorb the cost? Are you willing to pay 2 or 3 times the price for what feels like the same level of service? Most people I know wouldn't. In fact they'd probably scream bloody murder. But that's where the funny accounting is. The BBC is on a commercial pipe. They are, ironically, already paying for the bandwidth their using, it's the end user who's been getting the break. Which makes this a backhanded way to get us to pay. Because if the BBC doesn't cough up the money your service is what would theoretically be effected, ISP's are simply shifting the culpability to the upstream provider. What a funny world.
Quack, quack.
Here's a better analogy. A certain toll road is a convenient way to transport goods between points A and B. UPS carries goods for hundreds of clients, but Amazon.com has recently increased their shipment of product through UPS in a way that leads UPS to send many more trucks across the toll road.
The toll road's owner, in an effort to remain price-competitive with other routes, has been neglecting upgrading toll road capacity in favor of keeping prices low. Now, because their roads are choked with UPS trucks, and because raising toll amounts will lead to loss of traffic to other routes, the toll road owner demands that Amazon.com directly subsidize their shipment traffic across the toll road.
There are a few possible solutions. First, Amazon.com could pay the subsidies. Second, Amazon.com could ensure their traffic doesn't cross that toll road. (E.g. air freight.) Third, the toll road could take out a loan or two to build up its capacity, and pay off the loan by raising rates.
The first option would mean the BBC would pay subsidies to individual broadband providers. The second option would require the BBC to find another way to push their content to potential customers. (I.e. move into video on cell phones and the like.) The third option would mean raising rates charged to customers, at least until the loan is paid off.
In a way, this is the result competition working too well. Broadband providers are so desperate to avoid raising prices for their end consumer, they're trying to find other ways to subsidize their costs. Obviously, in many cases, there isn't much current competition. (Let's see...I can choose between DSL and cable, both of whom have monopolies for their respective site access physical layer.) However, they're probably trying to prevent the ISP market from opening up to offer a new kind of competition. (Oops...I forgot I could also choose to connect my computer to the Internet via a phone...)
If new avenues of competition open up, then their lack of investment in infrastructure will be their downfall. Going back to the toll road analogy, someone would see the opportunity to make money in an alternate transportation system, and our jammed toll road will have to deal with another avenue of competition.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
"But consumers as well as companies already pay for the bandwidth they use. "
Indeed? So if one has "unlimited" bandwidth? Doesn't that mean they should have "unlimited" bills?
So here is what people need to realize, that the "Internet" is only as good as the computers connected to it. Why would you want to connect to a network - easy, the content you can access. Same as for the office, for the home, and for the internet. You connect to a network to access content. You can create a network, like many a community wifi-based networks have built, but unless you connect to something with content, no one else will want to connect to your network.
So the issue with network neturality is that the provider of content has to exist, otherwise, the client of the content (consumers, etc) will never connect. Content (news, video, shopping, anything served up) is why people connect to the network (internet). By charging consumers to connect to this network, a provider should be able to cover their costs, plus make a profit. There are different levels of providers of IP, and based on what level you're connecting at (10 mpbs mostly pull is going to cost you while an OC-48 can peer with most providers for free) will decide your price per meg.
These peering agreements are what make the internet work. If the servers of Ebay are connected to AT&T, and you have Earthlink as your DSL provider, you rely on the peering agreement between AT&T and Earthlink. Now Ebay could be charged for their internet connection, and they do pay at some level, but AT&T likes their traffic out to the internet (mostly push), due to their ability to pull from the internet for their customers (mostly pull). Peering agreements are two way agreements, so a good ISP is going to balance their push customers (slashdot, cnn, yahoo) with their pull customers (home internet connections, corporate networks).
Now to charge a premium for a certain customer to get access to specific content at a faster speed than otherwise available becomes a very tricky issue. Who would charge this fee, and who would count that fee on their corporate balance sheet? Would it be the ISP for the server, the back haul provider, or the ISP for the user? What about the peering points which allow for the internet to work? These are setup as non-profits and do not charge for exchanging traffic (but look at the levels of traffic the SeattleIX handles http://www.seattleix.net/agg.htm)
When will everyone else "get it"?
The fantasy is that you are paying for 10Mbit on your cable connection so therefore you should get 10Mbit 24/7. The reality is that you weren't sold dedicated bandwidth and are sharing perhaps a max of around 100Mbit with your community.
The fantasy is that you are paying for an Internet connection so therefore anything that is possible you should be able to do. The reality is what you are paying is carefully crafted not to support the service but to build market share. Other services are involved on the same wires (DSL + telephone service or Cable TV + Cable Internet) and they are sharing in the cost of the infrastructure.
The fantasy is that they telecom companies were paid to develop video on demand to compete with the cable companies. The reality is they took the money and figured out in about 1995 that there was no market at the price they would have to charge. Yes, they kept taking the money and this was probably wrong. But we, as in the states and consumer regulatory agencies, gave it to them. All they did then was take what was given to them.
Could it have been done differently? Sure, we could have scrapped the entire concept of an independent telephone company in the 1980's and had the government nationalize it. Along with the cable TV systems just in case they became valuable. That would have pretty much ended most investment in infrastructure in the US just as it has everywhere else. The infrastructure gets investment money when the state sells off the nationalized asset, just like Australia and I am sure a few other places.
The reality is that today we have a system that is vastly underbuilt to handle video on demand and other services. Currently we have absurdly low prices in some markets (DSL for $14.95) and absurdly high in others. Pricing at the low end of the scale isn't going to allow for much build-up but it sure does build market share. How do we get fiber to each home? I certainly don't know but it is certain that it is going to take a massive rebuild of the entire system - neither the cable infrastructure or the telecom copper plant is going to handle it. Both are going to require gigabit capacity to the neighborhood node and there isn't anything that does that yet.
Yes, its a problem. But endlessly ranting on and on about how you aren't getting what you think you paid for doesn't help. You aren't paying for what you would like, you are paying for what the ISP can deliver today. And you aren't paying as much as you probably are going to be - unless the ISPs get to charge the content providers at the other end. That is the only way broadband is going to remain at a "building market share" price.
Here in NZ we have a similar, but significantly different issue.
We have an incumbent bandwidth provider with a Govt-sanctioned monopoly. Add in overseas shareholders & the focus for the last 10 years has been on profit over investment. We have pathetic internet connections - average users are on plain ADSL, with a real downstream speed of 2-3Mbs. Recently they had to cancel a connection plan as they had oversubscribed it so badly that they were hardly able to provide speeds faster than dialup.
Recently, to "reduce costs" the telco pulled peering with the major IPXs in NZ, and now charge boatloads for ISPs to buy an ATM connection back to their network. Yes, ATM.
It all boils down to a lack of investment to maximise profits. ISPs in NZ & the UK have been underinvesting and oversubscribing to make the most of what they have. When they finally wake up & realise that they can't provide the service they said they can, they panic & start looking elsewhere to get the money they need to pay for the upgrades they should've done/started years ago.
In NZ, the money is coming from other ISPs, Govt & raping the customer. In the UK, ISPs want it from large content providers.
The problem is that the ISP's are trying to control the users. We, in the first place, pay for our bandwidth. It has always been like this. And companies have always gotten away with killing users with higher bandwidth. Just like AT&T has gotten away with cancelling users with numerous+ call-ins (complaints).
0 70810_002683.html
The ISP's deserve none of the money that independent companies make because they are not a part of it. They're only purpose is to PROVIDE BANDWIDTH FOR THE USER. This is not socialism. This is a capitalist country.
And it's not that they can't deliver it. They're greedy. You can get more than double what we get here, for half of what we pay here. So your "they can't deliver" objection/statement/rebuttal/opinion is VOID. They were given 200 billion dollars (the US) to invest in the new, next wave of internet technology (fiber networks).
Look here:
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20
Let them limit the content...BBC, don't pay the charges. If enough of the BBC is compromised, then the customers will start complaining. That would hurt more than any complaining any of us on /. can do.
There is a simple solution for the ISPs. Don't sell more bandwidth than you have the capacity to provide
He pulled you out of a class, did he? Seriously, what kind of anger disorder do you have that these posts on /. make you think threatening someone is okay, or even worse, "cool"? Tip: You don't look cool, you look like a mad little boy. Just like high school, no one is impressed with you.
Ruin my internet reputation, too, please.
While you're at it, hit puberty. Thanks.
Nope.
If traffic can't be managed through packet shaping, they'll just meter your bits per month. Sure, you can have that nice fat 10mbit down, 5mbit up pipe. Just be sure not to go over your monthly quota unless you want to pay an extra fee at the end of the month. Kinda like going over your cell phone minutes.
If and when this happens, I can guarantee you will see a utility provided by Microsoft to help you manage your bit quota. Also, expect such a feature to be available in home routers to block all traffic should you reach your quota so as to not get a nasty bill at the end of the month.
This will happen IMHO, so be prepared!
Life is not for the lazy.
And you'll be the first to complain when the bandwidth crunch happens and you're not getting the service you expect.
Seriously, does *anybody* think that TV over the Internet is a good idea? It's just not designed for hundreds of millions of people to be constantly sucking megabits per second with real time contraints.
Square peg, round hole.
We already have boxes which work perfectly for what most people are going to use it for (digital TV), and even USB plugs for it, so why try to do it over the 'net? It's madness.
No sig today...
Is there a complete list of ISP's who are asking for this? I want to avoid giving any money to the net-mafia.
But why would anyone buy Internet connection from a company which limits access to high bandwith services? Soon as they try, there is going to be other ISPs stealing the market by selling free access. This is the market economy. They can try to set up cartel, but as economic history shows, cartels don't hold. Getting the regulators messing this will only cause harm in the short and long run.
And suppose some service providers really strain the network more than others. If the invisible hand of the market so desires, why not provide two kinds of services: cheap "Internet light" for those, who don't want to pay for infrastructure for high traffic services, and a more expensive "Internet heavy" with no restrictions. That makes pefects sense, if it turns out that there is demand for such a diversity.
Beware of socialism on the Internet. We did magnificently in creating the anarchistic Internet with non-legally binding co-operation with all parties, keep it that way. And remember, "the Internet treats cencorship [and other restrictions] like a broken network: it routes around it".
Anssi Porttikivi / app@iki.fi
If my ISP starts throttling access to high bandwidth sites to extort money, I will just move to a better ISP.
I pay for my bandwidth, as does the BBC. I don't see why anyone should have to pay twice. If this ever happens, I think a regulatory investigation shall be merited into this form of criminal extortion. What's the point in having broadband that can't be used for the purpose for which it was marketed?
ISPs should not be offering shareholders ANY return until their networks are capable of providing sufficient capacity to deliver the services they promised to customers. Bandwidth usage IS going to rocket over the next few years as HD contents is delivered over IP networks. If ISPs are not willing to invest heavily, they are in the wrong business.
Here's how I'd play hardball if I was the BBC, or Google, or anyone like that:
I would look up the IP blocks which belong to whoever is threatening me.
I would then redirect any connection from those IP ranges to a page explaining what their ISP is trying to do, and have phone numbers available for each customer's ISP.
This might even work better for the BBC than for Google, because Google is an Internet business -- every customer they cut off is money lost. The BBC, however, does do traditional broadcasting, so they can afford to kill off some customers and make them turn on their old-fashioned cable TV.
Anyway: "Contracts get re-negotiated all the time..." Bullshit. This isn't a case of renegotiating a contract. It's a case of some ISPs trying to bully the BBC into creating a contract where none currently exists. If it was the BBC's own ISP that wanted to charge them more, then yes, that makes sense, and the BBC can then decide if they want to play, or if they want to find another ISP. But if it's some random ISP across the country, I'd say "Fuck you, you just lost your customers."
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Right now, most ISPs do packet shaping or outright blocking of some kind. Even if they don't, they have the capability to.
Most also oversell ludicrously. It's great for me that my bandwidth is subsidized by people who barely know what a website is, but that distinction is fading as more people discover YouTube.
And many already have a policy of, if you use "too much" bandwidth, we'll charge extra, or we'll start throttling you. Who decides what is "too much"? How do I know if I'm using too much? They don't say.
Anyway, if this happens, it means two things: First, they actually will build the infrastructure they're supposed to. And second, price competition (or regulation) will eventually drive out those nasty overages, and bandwidth will be at least as cheap as it is now, if not cheaper.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
This sounds more like a simple case of greed rather than a lack of capability or bandwidth at ISP's. The BBC offered ISP peering for their content long before they launched the new video player. Take a look at the BBC peering page. Any UK ISP can pick up BBC content directly from the BBC at their favorite peering point.
There are actually really good car analogies, but this isn't one of them.
If car manufacturers start making big profits selling cars, others will decide to get into the car manufacturer business, and eventually they'll have to start upping their volume instead of charging millions of dollars per car, due to that competition. Both of these -- more car manufacturers, and more volume per manufacturer -- cause more demand for steel.
So at least temporarily, steel will cost more, until the same thing happens to the steel plants (more people get into manufacturing steel, and they start putting out more volume).
That's what the ISPs might like you to think -- that it's a fair price, because there's so much more demand now, and the price will settle once the new infrastructure (and new competitors) are in place. But there's more going on there -- they are trying to charge for something they have no business charging for in the first place, never mind how much they're trying to charge.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Next time though, why not post as yourself instead of hiding behind the mask of anonymity.
Maybe because he wishes to remain anonymous?
Duh.
You must have been a great teacher... not.
The problem is that ISP's everywhere have dug themselves in a PR hole, for some time now.
See, the move to "unlimited flat-rate internet access" was in a day and age when there wasn't that much to do on the 'net. The average user would read a few emails, maybe answer them too, but that's mostly time without any actual data transfer, and read a few web pages. Web pages which too meant a lot less graphics than today. And online games meant mostly MUDs and some cutesy java games on some website. (EQ and UO and AC did exist, but they accounted for maybe 1% of the internet subscribers.)
God knows AOL had plenty of subscribers who didn't complain, at a time when (at least in Europe) their ISDN service had 2000-4000ms ping to the second node in the traceroute, and bandwidth wasn't much better either.
So basically they sold you a service on the assumption that you wouldn't use much of it.
The drive to advertise higher and higher access speeds, again was mostly driven by marketting. Backbone speeds didn't increase proportionally, or in many cases at all. Again, the assumption was that you wouldn't actually use most of it. Sure, maybe the email with pic you send mom would upload faster, but then you wouldn't do much on the net for the rest of the day. Basically it's more like burst speed, than sustainable speed for everyone.
Unfortunately, what you pay for internet access doesn't even come close to paying for 24/7 usage of the whole bandwidth they advertised, and they know it.
Even more unfortunately, now the idea of unlimited unmetered access is so entrenched in everyone's mind, that it's a bit like an ISP game of chicken. Whoever is the first to not stay the course, and announces that they're reverting to pay per minute or pay per MB, has lost. But, like with the real game of chicken, if noone gives up, everyone loses a bit later.
Trying to go after the providers of such massive data streams is, basically, the band-aid. If they can't charge the users more, then, well, maybe they can try to charge BBC more. Or maybe they can stop BBC from making their users use more bandwidth altogether. Ditto for trying to demonize the users who actually use the bandwidth advertised: unpopular as it is, it's less of a seppuku maneuver than just admitting that the old model is breaking down and they're reverting to making you pay for how much you use.
To compound the problem, here's another thing they didn't count on: your using the upload bandwidth. The traditional model has been that some site publishes the content, and pays for that bandwidth, while you only download it and at most send a few emails and the HTTP requests/ TCP/IP handshake upstream. Basically the content providers would subsidize your broadband. Every 1 MB you download would be 1 MB that some web site paid for. Then the ISPs would divide that loot according to how much each pushed on the others' network.
Unfortunately nowadays more and more traffic is P2P or VOIP, between users which all are on such unmetered unlimited access plans. When you download 1MB via P2P, that's 1 MB that noone really paid for. That's not how that pricing model was supposed to work. It was supposed to be "free" for you, only because someone else paid for it. Or better said, it was never "free", it was just that someone else paid the tab.
With P2P, that model breaks down, because noone pays the tab. The ISP is left not only with a bunch of used download bandwidth that noone pays for, but actually ends up paying to the backbone for the upload part of it.
And again, it's a bit of a game of chicken: noone wants to be the first one who just announces that they're starting charging per MB uploaded.
Admittedly, the latter isn't "solved" by trying to extort BBC, but going after such sites looks like the easiest way out anyway. Maybe they can make them pay more for the bandwidth left after P2P and VOIP.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not very sympathetic to that approach, and that's putting it mildly. Just saying that, if you were wondering what's their problem, there you go. That's what it is.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
In France, there is some sort of law that prevents networks from charging each others for bandwidth usage. Since ADSL exists, it has always been unlimited, i have a server there, and the limit i have is 100 mb/s (basically because of the NIC), no monthly usage limit crap. Oh and did i mention it is really cheap? For the price i pay in britain (NTL/virgin) £20 a month equivalent to 30 (or $40) in france i get 30 mb/s not 4, i get unlimited landline calls to 28 countries, not nothing, i get a few 100 channels (including MTV, discovery, BBC world, cnn, stuff that is not in french and matters) instead of the 5-only standard channels. For the same price. In the country next door. which i can ping in 46 miliseconds (35 being wasted around birmingham for some reason).
Don't underestimate the power of the BBC. Despite snipes at certain reports, its the best broadcaster in the UK (and World) and possibly our most visited web site.
If the BBC publically dumps the ISP's who are complaining from connecting to their content, I bet the UK consumer will switch in droves, after-all we have plenty of ISP's to choose from and its quick/simple to change. Rememeber - WE PAY FOR THE BBC.
It would be commercial suicide.
It occurs to me that, if anything, the ISPs should be paying the BBC. They should cough up for the privilege of being able to provide BBC services to their customers, in the same way that Virgin were recently asked to pay for the privilege of being able to provide Sky channels to their customers. They wouldn't like the alternative: try explaining to your customers why they can't get the BBC website, while Mr Jones next door using a rival ISP can, and see how long they're still your customers.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
The BBC is a monopoly with unique rights to collect licence fees from UK citizens for owning a television set, and the state picks up the licence collection costs. This mad state of affairs is supposed to keep the BBC independent of political interference: to some extent it actually does too, hooray. In some places where logic has a firmer grip, it would be hard to argue that an institution that gets its income by fiat has the moral highground over a collection of ISP companies that have to make a living. Here, in a country where the head of the state is also head of the national religion, we can take this sort of thing in our stride.
However, many of us here who may not give two hoots for the Royal Family or God in any form cherish the BBC. It is a beloved organization - part of the national psyche along with Hornby railway sets, Meccano, Lord Reith, Flanders and Swan, the Home Service, Wimbledon, Airfix, Old English Spangles, Aertex, Proper Sausages with breadcrumbs in, and the Promenade Concerts. In many ways it is not perfect, but we see it for the aspiration that it embodies as much as what it now is, nation shall speak peace unto nation, and all that sort of thing. It sets the standard that our other TV channels have to match or not get watched. It has chosen to set a standard for web pages too, and though that is not part of its charter, it seems right that it does.
Listen well, IPS's. We like our BBC. You touch it, you touch us. Beware.
"The answer to this would be for the ISPs not to just quit overselling, but to expand capacity to actually deliver what they offer."
Slashdotters. You must think infrastructure grows on trees. I doubt you all are willing to PAY for all these upgrades let alone the NIMBY that would result from all the digging and emplacement of this infrastructure. Plus your solution still doesn't address the wastage that would result from people NOT using that infrastructure like geeks (which seems to be the ONLY group doing all the complaining so far) would.
One of the features of this little spat is that iPlayer is designed (actually, bought in from Verisign...) as a P2P application, so most of the data shifted will not originate from the BBC in the first place. So this is really an attempt by ISPs to charge the BBC for data that is actually moving between ISP's end users.
t al_cost_discouraging/) revealed that consumers are very resistant to broadband price hikes, it does seem like the ISPs have dug themselves a hole that can only get deeper.
Interestingly, both Tiscali and BT (cited as participants in this by El Reg) have their own video-over-IP services (Homechoice http://www.homechoice.co.uk/ rebranded as Tiscali TV and BT Vision http://www.bt.com/vision) and it's probably not a surprise they'd like to disadvantage the BBC in that marketplace.
I tend to the view that iPlayer is a broken means of distributing TV-on-demand, but it's broken partly because the ISPs don't seem interested in developing better mechanisms. It's certainly not going to get fixed by ISPs whingeing that consumers want what they've been sold at the cost they were promised. But since a recent survey (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/08/line_ren
The practice of labeling up ISP services as "unlimited" needs to be addressed before freemarket economics can come into play. There is not much incentive to launch a "restricted" service if all your competitors keeping touting neverending network access.
;D
This led me to examine my ISP, selling the "unlimited" package that I am using - https://www.bethere.co.uk/homebroadband.do
Not on the top 10 list of FAQ's (I guess that not many people search for "how long will it be before I get disconnected from my unlimited service?") but a vague entry about if the service really is unlimited - https://www.bethere.co.uk/generalFAQ.do#faq30
Ahh, somewhere near the bottom "What about excessive network usage?" - you get a nasty letter if they "feel" that you're using too much of the internet - https://www.bethere.co.uk/fairusage.do
I'm acutely aware that all/most UK ISP's operate like this so this doesn't bother/affect me too much, at the moment. But I would like more(some) transparancy about the service that is being supplied to me. I migrated from my previous ISP because they had a routing problem (this affected me everyday) that they couldn't fix, and would not publicise - I do not appreciate being lied to about the service I think I'm paying for.
Anyway, they should just double the speed of my connection (at no cost) so I can use the internet in half the time - that way everyone wins
I have to wonder if ISP provided content (I'll use AT&T as an example since I only vaguely know the British ones), such as IPTV, will be charged in the same way. If the ISP provides this service without charging back (an internal charge back), then they are asking other service providers to subsidize those services.
Naw, they'd never do that.
Screw this. This is the BIGGEST bullshit ever. It`s pure profit maximizing nothing more. You can call it traffic shaping or whatever its still bullshit. It means that you have a lot of time on your hand and you are greedy as f@ck and you figure oo, lets introduce a new "fee" so you can get more money, and you bullshit ppl to make them believe its for optimizing their connection whereas again it`s just bullshit. You are getting PAID by your customers/subscribers ALREADY. that includes ME and BBC and EVERYONE that accessing your network. Besides who the hell you think would use the net plain without any content??????? You think ppl pay you because they love the fact that they`re able to send/receive packets? (normal ppl don`t care, they pay you to access sites like BBC if you charge them extra you may lose them because they may just cancel their contract with you and turn on their telly instead. then you are fskd... :) So just SFTU build a better network, offer more bandwidth then you may charge more for the extra BW and stop crying you whores. I`m sick of this shit in the US already not to mention this kind of cr@p generally wont be tolerated in the EU (ppl are NOT that stupid y`know, its harder to bullshit/brainwash ppl in there)
by WiZ
I thought that the monthly fee we pay already was to cover access ... but maybe it only covers the final mile and they need to be paid twice to cover the rest of the journey.
Uh, no. It's all about finding new ways to generate revenue. As my boss explained to me: "We gotta do this too! It's [extorting Google] a great way to generate new revenue!"
As I explained to my boss: "AT&T is *saying* they *want* to do it. They're not doing it yet. And we're not exactly $telco or $cableco, so if we try to do it first, *all* our customers will just up and quit."
Somehow, generating new revenue this way is no longer a priority where I work.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
This may force the real issue of network neutrality to surface. That is: The ability of the network operators to tip the content market to favor their own services over those of competition.
Smart move boys, going after a government entity. At least here in the USA, the broadband people have tread very lightly around public entities providing services. The battle here seems to be public vs private network infrastructure. If the BBC (or the British gov't on its behalf) steps up and slaps down the vertical monopolies, it might set a precedent that our municipal networks can follow.
Have gnu, will travel.
Telco/CableCo broadband providers are allowed to increase or decrease their rates for providing a broadband utility service, but the content is none of their business/responsibility. Telco/CableCo broadband providers charging for premium, standard, poor content is much the same as theft of content property value. The content providers already have a business model which includes paying for bandwidth. The bandwidth providers have the right to increase rates for bandwidth provided.
Telco/CableCo broadband providers are, by most home users in the USA, customers pay for access to a set expectation of bandwidth, most common are 56Kb/s and three variation (sort of) ADSL bandwidth (LessUp+MoreDown). Much like a utility the product flows at the same cost-per-volume much like water, gas, electricity. Just like any other utility you should not be expecting to get tap, pure, and flavored water (because you will not), high or low energy gas ain't gonna happen from the same gas pipe, as best I understand electrons are electrons (all the same) for electricity. Cost-per-volume is the only honest practice for a utility with infrastructure cost distributed across the community for the to be provided fairly to all citizens.
Telco/CableCo broadband providers are, by most business/government users in the USA, contracted to provide a set bandwidth with a guaranteed quality and availability of service (premium/additional cost and penalties) not a this or that content filter depending on maybes, ifs, and scams.
At home (in most of the USA) the quality and availability of service (there is no competition) is totally dependent upon what the telcos/cablecos want to provide, and what may cause a class action legal complaint from the residential customers.
The USA ranks about 22nd in telecommunications services globally and with corporate lobbyist/politicians always in office, I suspect the USA will continue to decline as a world leader.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
The thing is, ISPs have been making a living for far too long by overselling their bandwidth. If they'd quit that, this wouldn't really be a problem. If they'd have tiered service plans, this wouldn't really be a problem.
There's a bit of subtlety to these discussions because "peering" has some technical meanings in addition to financial ones, but normally the two are aligned - either Company A and Company B think they'll both benefit from accepting each other's traffic (so they'll split the cost of an interconnection, or meet at an exchange point where they're both paying for their own pipe into the exchange, but won't charge each other money for the bandwidth), or else at least one of them doesn't think that, in which case that one will say "you can connect to me for $X for a pipe of size Y". Usually peering happens if both companies are carriers of similar size, or sometimes if they have synergistic market niches (e.g. one is an access provider with lots of eyeballs trying to get content to attract more access customers, and the other is a content provider with lots of content, and their political power is balanced.) The details are also somewhat different in Europe, where distances are much shorter and everybody uses a couple of major exchange points in London and Amsterdam, than they are in the US, where distances are much longer, with a couple dozen major long-haul carriers interconnecting in 5-10 cities (mostly on both coasts.)
If Carrier A doesn't think Company B can deliver as much benefit as they're getting, they won't build a pipe to B unless B pays them. B can pay Carrier C for service, and if A and C are peers, then A will accept BGP routes to B servers on their peering pipe with C. But if B convinces C to do free peering, A generally won't accept B's BGP routes on their Carrier C peering pipe; they may only accept it from Carrier D that B decided they did have to pay. Sometimes this leads to users who can't reach the whole Internet - we've seen that occasionally in the US when one of the very-low-priced marginally-Tier-1 carriers has trouble with former peers and doesn't want to pay for transit.
Normally it would be surprising that the BBC gets free peering from carriers (assuming it's free as opposed to paid-for peering) rather than having to pay transit to all of them, but perhaps the politics are such that access providers think the Beeb is important enough to their customer base that they're willing to give away the connections. For instance, a small DSL reseller needs to have connectivity to Google, so they may give Google a direct connection), but a large semi-monopoly cable-modem company doesn't need to have connectivity to Obscure Video Content Inc., so they're not going to give them a free pipe.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I'm not going to get into this whole debate on network neutrality, especially in Europe, as I get paid money for my opinions on this subject. But I will talk about the BBC's network. The geeks behind the Beeb's network are a pretty good bunch, who promote all kinds of technology and FLOSS projects on a limited budget.
The BBC have a number of well designed hosting centres to spread around their network usage, and a reasonable number of interconnections to help distribute their traffic for cheap. From their two AS numbers, 2818 and 31459, they have IPv4, v6, and multicast versions of their feeds. They have built out a fairly comprehensive distribution network using their own leased lines, multiple 10Gig Ethernet connections to both carriers and popular peering points around Europe and North America.
Any ISP selling broadband should be present at places like the AmsIX or LoNAP, where they can get a peering with the BBC for no charge. This means not paying for transit charges for the content. The BBC even has multicast streams available, for ISPs clued enough to actually make use of it (which is very few, unfortunately. BT is almost violently opposed to the idea, calling it a direct threat to the monarchy at times).
Any ISP, especially those in Britain, who will have a large number of viewers could set up private peerings at quite a few of the internet hotels spread all over the UK. There must be at least 25 locations where the BBC has internet peering capability. All the major ISPs in Britain like BT and NTL already have private peerings with the BBC.
The BBC only pays for their own interfaces on their own equipment, it is up to the ISPs to add their own capacity on their own kit, not exactly a cheap proposition. 10 GigE interfaces on 6500s or RX16s aren't playthings.
Therein lies the rub. This band of borderline criminal ISPs have tried to create an illegal conspiracy to force the Beeb to pay not only for their equipment upgrades, but also to pay for all the traffic from the BBCs network into their own. BT wants to charge for traffic in both directions, rather than the peak of whichever flow is highest. Ofcom should slap this down, but they are currently fighting the battle to stay relevant and have dropped all other cases before them.
There are moves afoot within the Tory party to destroy OfCom, because even with their very limited powers they've managed to keep BT slightly more honest than an all out unregulated lawless monopoly. Graft and corruption aren't limited to the U.S. political scene.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
If ISPs think things are bad now, just wait for HD to become popular. In fact, they are missing a trick here: most people have a computer monitor capable of 720p, but (in the UK at least) most people only have an SDTV.
A 45 minute 720p TV shows comes out to about 1.5GB. 1080p is even more fun.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC