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."
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.
Actually that's part of the problem - the BBC don't pay for their bandwidth. They pay for some bandwidth and they pay quite a lot overall for bandwidth but the bulk of BBC content is provided to ISPs through peering arrangements.
The BBC peer at 11 different peering exchanges across the UK, Europe and USA with two different AS Numbers - one for BBC European ops and one for BBC American Ops. Details are available at http://support.bbc.co.uk/support/peering/
The upshot of this is that the ISPs are peering with the BBC so they don't get complaints from customers that one of the biggest sites in the world is slow or have to pay over the odds to an upstream provider and the BBC is peering with ISPs to make sure that they don't get hit with a bill for the 10s of Gbps of bandwidth they have available to them.
Now that the bandwidth is likely to increase and the ISPs aren't going to get any more money from anyone for this they want the BBC to stump up. Personally I say tough - you decided to peer with the BBC, now you get to carry their traffic. It must have seemed beneficial once, surely those benefits haven't dissipated completely.
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
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!