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Who Pays for Rebuilding the Internet?
pcause writes "The Internet (physical as opposed to technical) was really not designed for applications that want to use maximum bandwidth all of the time, such as P2P and streaming video. Here in the US we've seen Comcast try to balance the demands of P2P traffic with other traffic and its backbone capacity. In the UK, a flame war has broken out between the BBC and ISPs about the same issue. So the question is who pays? Should the content owners who make the profits pay for the extra infrastructure, or should the consumer pay?"
This is in many ways, the same question we ask about factories/industries that pollute heavily. The environment belongs to all of us, so people ask "shouldn't they pay?"
"Taboo, like anything else, goes in and out of style."
Sorry, I think thats a terrible idea. One of the major benefits of the Internet is its inherent globalization. You don't have to worry about talking to someone in Russia and paying $5 a minute to the phone company, its the same cost as connecting to a site next door.
Just think how people's lives would be different if international or long distance phone charges didn't exist. How many times have you heard of someone waiting until a certain time of day to make a really long distance call? Or using Skype or some other Internet-based replacement for phone calls to get around the fees?
What you're proposing is basically to bring that sort of thing to the Internet itself, and I can't say that I want to wait until 2AM to save on my bandwidth bill.
This is essentially the same argument raised by those who are truly anti net neutrality -- not just "don't let the government interfere", but "why, yes, I do think Google should pay Comcast's bills."
Look, it's simple: Google pays Google's bandwidth bill. I pay mine. Both of them go towards building the infrastructure. If it's not enough, raise taxes to pay for it, I don't care.
What you do not get to do is raise the bar for the next Google, and continue to let ISPs deceptively advertise "unlimited" Internet access. Yes, technically, the advertising is truthful, but it is intentionally misleading, and we are all paying the price for it.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Should the content owners, who make the profits pay for the extra infrastructure or should the consumer pay?
The consumer will pay. PERIOD. Even if the content owners pay, the costs STILL get passed down to the consumer.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Oh dear. Do you actually believe that's a possibility with private companies in charge? No, if anything like your idea happens, we'll keep on paying our flat fees, *plus* all those fun extras.
We had this "bandwidth bill" back in the form of hours on dial up services. It sucked. We need no "bandwidth bills" the ISPs need to either A) improve their network and offer us unlimited service or B) decrease speed in order to offer unlimited service. All "bandwidth bills" are going to make us do is take a huge step backwards in the form of good software. If someone isn't going to pay the $3 for downloading a 700 MB ISO for Ubuntu to try it the software is no longer really "Free" and we go back to the '80s style of paying for crappy software rather then just downloading it.
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
FTP has been around since the 70's and http since the 90's and they want to take MAXIMUM BANDWIDTH.
"The interesting question is not who pays, but how can we all collectively pay less for better performance? The problem is that the billing model for the internet is broken. ISPs need to start billing for usage, that much is obvious."
While this sounds smart, that's exactly the model for water and right now there is a bit of a crisis for the home owners conserving their water around the Toronto area where I live... all of a sudden they are not taking in enough money to maintain infrastructure because it's based on usage.
As always it's a double-edged sword.
The question presumes that if the content owners pay, the consumers won't have to pay.
This is wrong. If the content owners are forced to pay, then the consumers will have to pay for the bandwidth when they pay for the content.
Here is the correct question: Should consumers pay for bandwidth when they pay for bandwidth? Or should consumers pay for bandwidth when they pay for content?
When phrased correctly, the answer becomes obvious. Consumers should pay for bandwidth when they pay for bandwidth. Any other answer has negative consequences, both to the economy and to the current nature of the Internet.
If you had super powers, would you use them for good, or for awesome?
>>There's a ton of spare bandwidth at night.
I don't know where you get this from. As an engineer for an ISP, our low point is only from approx 2-4 am. Bittorrent and other P2P clients left running all night still consume constant traffic in both directions.
The consumer will ultimately pay.
He may pay directly.
He may pay indirectly, getting subsidized delivery in exchange for advertising.
Guess who pays for advertising: The people who consume the product being advertised.
TANSTAAFL.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I thought we paid already, and the ISPs just didn't reinvest into rebuilding their network.
The last I checked most of these ISPs either had monopolies granted to them, and/or had existing infrastructure handed to them by Governments.
Some even had billions of _public_ money handed to them by Governments to build their _future_ networks.
So now they want us to pay again?
This is like the power and water companies asking us to pay extra just because they went "Oops, oh yeah forgot about this reinvesting into infrastructure for the future thing".
Compare how much ISPs charge and how much power and water companies charge, and what you get for it. While small ISPs have to pay per bit (like water and power companies which have to pay per unit of gas/coal/water), AFAIK large ISPs have cushier arrangements with each other, since the incremental costs of sending bits isn't high once the network capacity is paid for - if nobody uses the bandwidth, the ISP still has to pay about the same for the network.
Why don't the ISPs pay for their own hardware? I am not getting how it is the content creator or customer that pays for buying new hardware that an ISP owns. If an ISP is not able to pass on the cost of new hardware and stay competitive with service and price, then I guess that ISP goes obsolete. I think that is how the market is supposed to work, right? After all, it is the ISPs and bandwidth wholesalers that screwed the pooch by building networks and a pricing model that was asymmetrical because they thought the Internet was all web based.
The old breed of ISPs should go out of business if they can't compete and a new generation of ISPs will emerge with a better business model. There is demand and it is not going away so there is money to be made. If they cannot adapt, then too bad. By the way, nice fallacy that P2P apps are designed to use maximum bandwidth. What evidence do you have to back this up? It sounds more anecdotal than anything. Not all P2P apps are created equal and are designed to file share.
If the content providers pay, but cannot (or do not) pass those costs along to the consumers, then their business model will not be viable. They will be paying more than they are making, and eventually will starve to death.
Obviously, this isn't going to happen.
If the content providers pay, and can still squeeze a profit out of the deal, they will *still* pass the cost along to consumers, for two obvious reasons: 1) they want to maximize their own profit margins, 2) they will get sued by their own shareholders if they don't try.
The cost will be passed on to consumers one way or another...perhaps in the form of a direct infrastructure tax, perhaps in the form of tax incentives/subsidies specifically for ISPs, perhaps in the form of higher cost service to the consumers, most likely as a combination of all three (and maybe other common means of paying that I haven't thought of).
Remember...the workers generate wealth while the organizers skim off the top. There is no more universal principle.
The problem is that if you need to do all that insane packet accounting in all your routers and switches, you're going to end up billed ten times more, not a tenth as much.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
You're in business selling a service that's so popular you cannot meet all the demand that exists for it.
And you're asking how you're going to pay for building out to be able to provide more?
(1) Raise your prices. Use the extra revenue to pay for buildout. Sell more service. Profit.
(2) Get investment. Use it for buildout. Sell more service. Return profit to investors.
I understand that the peering agreements make things more complicated, but the basic issue is that people on the ends of the network have demands for the services, and it really seems like there's fairly transparent economic solutions to that problem without trying to do anything particularly complicated like having ISPs shake down content providers who don't have points of origin on their networks.
In short: bill the people you provide service to. Don't try billing the people you don't provide service to.
Tweet, tweet.
If the internet had a model like you suggesteed when it started we would still be using BBSes and modems. If it is implemented now, it will create a great barrier to entry to new service companies trying to do serious business on the internet, let companies like google monopolize cheap software services and stop or reduce total internet usage. People like only paying a flat fee and not worrying about it.
There would not be a drop in price, theres no way providers would drop potential revenue.
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I think we called it capitalism... If you don't want it, don't buy it
I think your proposal would save lots and lots of bandwidth. That's great. But I think ximenes' point is that it would bring in a culture of scarcity to bandwidth usage, possibly changing peoples' usage patterns for the worse, and that danger outweighs the savings.
Why, when we already have something better?
Think of your cell phone service, you pay for the company to maintain antennas to talk to YOUR phone. Your friends 2 states away pay for their company to maintain antennas in their towns. The cost is in maintaining the equipment for a given level of usage, not the per call cost. The particulars of how your call gets from your phone to your friends phone at a different phone company really aren't important and the companies should work that out.
That's how the internet was started from the beginning. The current high-bandwidth places like Google pay so much for bandwidth they by stock in Fiber. They are paying, considerably more than customers for all the packet they send out to their provider. And consumers are "legally" paying for the packet they accept...Which if you think about phone service or any other situation like mail is totally silly that IPS want to charge for "incoming call" packets.
The real problem is that ISPs traditionally discouraged being part of the real internet and were established as pure consumer leachers. They grew up their structures based on how fast they could "broadcast" web pages while severely limiting any kind of hosting between hosts or to the general internet. In a peer-sharing network, they have nothing to actually share. The structure forced means that all of the traffic for all of AT&T's customers in a given state go thru just a few actual internet connections, and no routes go thru. It's like car traffic thru all the "closed" subdivisions that all dump into one main road instead of providing alternate routes thru the countryside for the increased traffic.
I agree that P2P and caching would be good, but the telcos want big bucks for that... they are still thinking client-server. They want Viewers, not Customers... trying to monetize those under-priced DSL customers by selling expensive services found elsewhere on the internet.
It will never be. Companies do not lower price points on services still in high demand, even if it is cheaper to produce.
In this case the inverse of your statement is instructive as well: "Whoever owns should pay". The telecoms have received plenty of free money from governments already. Its absurd for them to come whining about bad infrastructure when they built it themselves. The high capacity fiber backbone of the internet can handle todays and tomorrow's needs, the fact that the last mile infrastructure sucks is their own doing.
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Like the cell phone model only complicated such that many would be afraid to use the network? But wait! the cell phone model seems to be moving towards a one-price, all-you-can-eat model, too... and they seem to be making money. ISP service in the US is cheap. We could still have a higher rate for premium tier service and not cause people to consider *not* communicating or doing business, now. The fibre is being paid for by those who will profit from its use. Why wouldn't an ISP go for market share by offering the bandwidth and services that attract more users? I guess that was Comcast's model pre-filtering... back to the old model, it seems.
Economic system resides within political system. Political system breaks, so does economics. I wish Adam Smith was around to tell us how we are fucking up and corrupting his ideas.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
...because they're the ones telling consumers they can download as much as they want with their 'unlimited' plans.
We did all this in Australia years ago; the most common form of Internet we get is on tiered monthly plans (3gb/month, 12gb/month, etc). Our international bandwidth is still (apparently) really expensive, so the volume of data ISPs feel comfortable giving us is relatively small to what I'd expect US ISPs to offer.
All yall other countries need to just play catchup on this issue and stop those douchebags from selling unlimited plans and then acting all surprised when people actually expect them to have no limits. People that use 200gb a month shouldn't be paying the same as people that use 5gb a month, and that should be reflected by ISP pricing.
So the question is who pays? Should the content owners, who make the profits pay for the extra infrastructure or should the consumer pay?
What are you talking about? The content owners/providers ALREADY PAY THEIR FULL COST. Those who buy wholesale bandwidth and those who colocate equipment in datacenters already pay for the bandwidth they use, the real cost of that bandwidth. Datacenters would go out of business if they didn't charge the real cost.
The failure of an ISP's business model, oversubscribing of backbone bandwidth and then selling "unlimited bandwidth" at far less than the actual cost, assuming no customers might ever use it fully, has absolutely nothing to do with the providers of content.
To use interweb tube analogy... The content providers have already paid their datacenters $1000s of dollars per month to provide a 10" tube to ship 1000s of barrels of data per second to the interweb. If an ISP advertises 10" tubes to your doorstep for $30/month, but their backbone is a garden hose, and they never actually expected you to use it... that is a contract dispute between the ISP and the consumer. The content providers have NOTHING to do with it.
If you begin to charge the content creators, then it will stop seeding start ups. Yahoo! is a good example of how the ability to host content inexpensively leads to growth.
What is your basis for claiming that the internet is clogged and choked up? With few exceptions, the internet is working just fine, thank you very much. Moving to a consumption-based billing model is nothing more than an excuse for the telecommunications providers to extract more money and perform fewer upgrades. The notion that ISPs are buckling under the weight of P2P and YouTube is even more retarded when you consider that P2P protocols by their nature prefer to use fast, local peers and companies like Google use backhaul networks to deliver content to local peering points.
The current model is elegant in that the exchanges between ISPs are essentially free. If Comcast/AT&T/Time Warner/etc are suddenly able to charge me in KB/s or have a tariff for each Email/IM sent like the wireless carriers do, someday they'll wake up and say "Hey, let's charge Verizon for accessing our customers!" Then the whole system breaks down, and you time travel back to 1989 when you had Prodigy (the IBM/Sears version), Compuserve and GEnie.
I work in an organization that maintains a carrier-grade private network that connects about 25,000 locations. But since even carrier-grade equipment has a relatively short lifespan, routine infrastructure refreshes give us next-generation technology, automatically, whether we need it or not. In 2004, it would have cost millions for ISPs to implement metro Gigabit networks to connect customer nodes... but today, equipment swap-outs will essentially give them that capability for next to nothing. In 2012/2013 when today's new equipment is obsolete, 10G ethernet will be the norm.
When your local transportation department discovers that traffic patterns have changed, they don't start billing you for your time on the highways. They figure out what the problem is, re-engineer traffic signaling or change maintenance schedules to widen/pave/etc roads. ISPs need to do the same.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
It is reasonable for an ISP to offer a service in which you pay for bandwidth used. I like having a high peak bandwidth on the rare occasion that I download a linux CD. But I don't do that very much so I don't want to pay to upgrade the internet because other people use 10Mbps 24/7 downloading music & HD movies. So I want a cheap service with a high peak rate, a quota of so many gigabits a month [I would have to check how many] and if I go over quota I would pay a sane amount extra. They should have a way to set what happens when you go over quota (e.g. limit spending to $10 or something). Other people should be able to pay more for an unlimited service that they can use 24/7 for a flat rate. We both pay for the load we put on the system.
The key problems are that:
1) The ISP should have to tell you what they say you are getting. If you connection is not unlimited at the max bandwidth they had better properly explain it before you buy the service. Many ISPs do not do this and it is a big problem. The free market won't work if you can't tell what you are buying.
2) ISPs oversell. They should be given a serious penalty when they fail to give the bandwidth they promised someone. This is not happening so they get away with not giving the service that they sold.
-WolvesOfTheNight
You can only use my tax money if I get to own it. Let one company own the last mile, and sell it to providers. No provider can own last mile, and no last mile company can provide access. It works for electricity in Houston...
Seriously, that's your argument? "Maybe I don't want to use the Internet?" Good luck with that.
We are rapidly getting to the point in the developed world that Internet access is as important as telephone access, it not more so. Reliable 'net access is more and more becoming like electricity and roads - a basic service.
I have a lot of opinions about Cyborgs and Architects
Not that it's feasible to go without electricity or roads, but lots of people get along just fine without the Internet. (I would suffer withdrawl and shrivel up and die, like a vampire exposed to sunlight. Actually, I also do that when exposed to sunlight. But that's a separate issue. Point is, it's not a "bread and water" kind of necessity.
If private companies provide internet service, you have every right to say "No, no series of tubes for me. I have a big truck." and go about your daily life.
If the government decides to take control of the internet, they're going to pay for it with tax dollars. (Duh.) And it's even more unfeasible to refuse to pay your taxes.
So, what's the argument? Nobody should have to pay the government to skew the internet around whatever our current bunch of congresscritters decide will get them the most votes and money come election year.
The other problem is freedom of choice. Where I live, there's a handful of companies that provide internet access, and I can subscribe to any one of them. Switching providers is a lot easier than emmigration.
DATABASE WOW WOW
If we had a real market, I would agree with you about competitiveness in pricing and all. Unfortunately, we don't have one. Even when there is an appearance of an open market in the Internet service business, it all becomes fixated on leased lines and certain other dependencies on a few providers who have built their infrastructure by neccesity of other services they have a monopoly on.
If ATT/SBC or time warner or cox would be forced to spin off their infrastructure and offer flat rate charges to competitors for the same prices as themselves, it might be a free market. But we have to remember that they got their lines and infrastructure as an ancillary to their long time protected monopoly and government help in getting right of ways and so on. They are basically benefiting by their roles in other areas as to this point which makes or gives them an unfair advantage and closes the idea of a free market.
We have attempted to negate this advantage by requiring them to lease the lines and infrastructure to other companies at costs but we all know how costs can be manipulated. This doesn't even cover all avenues of infrastructure either, take time warner for example, they are under no obligation to lease their lines for Internet usage except for their conditions to purchasing AOL back in the 90's. Aol has since been spun off and they are free to mark up their "cost" significantly to their advantage. Cox and Covad networks are relatively the same with cable Internet. DSL on the other hand is heavily regulated as far as the infrastructure goes with a caveat of requiring a certain amount of investment capabilities which makes it easier to gain access if you are a large organization. But if your attempting to work with Cable access, your not really going to get anything unless your a very large organization like Earthlink or are partnering with the cable company to supply re-branded service at a dictated cost. You don't really get big over night and hence the problem of not being able to provide the service needed to get big enough to provide the service.
In short, there are too many limitations and non-natural barriers to the market to even consider the internet infrastructure a free market that could allow a perfect competition. Look at Verizon with their FIOS, they are using their utility right of way and telco business to run fiber and replace their out dated copper infrastructure with the fiber needed to provide the FIOS which we have read about plenty of times. Almost all other last mile deployments without this utility protection have failed for several reasons but mainly because of all the hurdles that non utility companies face.
Who gets the contract to do the fiber? How much should be paid to do this contract? Should everyone get it or only dense populations? How dense do the populations have to be? How do we pay for it, do we inflate the currency through debt or do we increase tax?
Who gets the maintenance contracts? How much do we pay for the maintenance contracts? How much maintenance should be spent on all fiber or should only dense populations get it? How dense do the populations have to be? How do we pay for it, do we inflate the currency through debt or do we increase tax?
Who gets to use the fiber? How much do we charge companies to use this fiber? How do we ensure its being used for the right purposes and companies aren't bidding for contacts and locking in those customers? Who is responsible for faults in the network? How are costs allocated?
The market is fine, the solution is to deregulate so companies are forced to compete, as opposed to the more segregated systems that we are used to now a days.
I don't recall anyone ever saying "To have a free market, it must be provided by public Government services", a free market can never have any Government regulation or intervention, else it is not a free market.
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Economic system resides within political system. Political system breaks, so does economics. I wish Adam Smith was around to tell us how we are fucking up and corrupting his ideas.
Thomas Jefferson warned of this.
Thomas Jefferson:
Falcon"I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of their country."
Should there be a Law?
It has been obvious since dialup-to-BBS days that bandwidth demands were only going to go up, and go up fast. Every new, faster modem was snapped up immediately, until the bandwidth of voice lines was saturated. And those of you with longer memories may recall the RBOCs/ILECs bitching along the lines of, "Oh noes! Our trunks and switches, they are overloaded! We can haz data tax?" Proposals to surcharge data traffic were floated, which were all greeted with hearty, derisive laughter.
Fast-forward not-at-all-many-years to the broadband age, and the RBOCs/ILECs are saying, "Oh noes! Our switches and routers, they are overloaded. We can haz content tax?" The only real difference between then and now is that now the cable television providers are joining in the chorus. This, however, does not make the argument any more valid.
Now, whether or not heavy users of the network should be surcharged, and how much they should be surcharged -- while a subject worthy of some discussion -- is nevertheless completely swamped by the Actual Point. Here is the Actual Point:
YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUILDING OUT YOUR NETWORK IN THE FIRST DAMNED PLACE!
Really, after watching dialup explode in popularity, after watching broadband explode in popularity, after watching other nations build out their digital infrastructure to some amazing levels... There is no fscking excuse for any RBOC/ILEC to be whining about overloaded networks!
You had plenty of warning, you had more than plenty of money, you even got $200 billion in handouts from the Fed... I mean, what the fsck have you been up to the last fifteen years?
The floor of your monthly fee structure should be covering not only maintenance, but also aggressive buildout. If they aren't, then you've deliberately kept your head in the sand this whole time (and you suck at math).
Tweak everyone's base rates, build out the network to the required capacities like you should have been doing, and stop trying to propogate this self-serving pathetic meme that some network users are more equal than others.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
ISP A-20Gb per month for $40 and $1.50 per Gb for everything over, or ISP B at 35Gb for $40 with $1 per Gb over. And NEITHER bothers to give you any kind of way to tell how much you've used! Why? Because they know that by NOT giving you an easy way to tell that you will either overestimate badly which means you don't get what you paid for, or you underestimate badly and you connection will go up by a ton.
Me I'd much rather pay for a slower unlimited line than deal with this crap. But thanks to the lack of competition I don't get a choice in the matter. So enjoy having to throttle your downloads to 10k to keep enough overhang for videos and surfing. Trust me it is REAL fun. IMHO this is just another excuse for the big telecos to sit on the butts and enjoy their huge profits rather than doing what a sensible company would do which is reinvest some of it into upgrades to their business. But don't worry, I'm sure you'll all get a taste of it REAL soon. But this is my 02c my exp,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I really don't see what the fuss is about with all this infrastructure "debate". It's damn obvious who should pay for it: the ISPs. There isn't even a case to answer. The customers have paid for their connections, the BBC have paid for their connections. End of story. It has nothing to do with last mile or neutrality or anything else. ISPs who have planned their businesses badly and mis-sold connectivity are trying to blame it on other people.
Content providers should pay for the infrastructure? Seriously? The BBC has nothing to do with the infrastructure, it's a cost of doing business just like electricity and water. They don't care who provides it or what the difference between the first and last mile is. The ISP *is* in the business of internet infrastructure... funnily enough, they are going to have to pay. At least, here's hoping.
sam brightman
Your right, it's not free -- but it's a planned expense that is accounted for in the rates already. If the network operator has a clue, it becomes quickly apparent that maintaining legacy equipment is often more expensive than replacing it.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I feel the same way about my local pizza place. They offered a deal where you got as much salad as you could eat for $20 per year. I'd skip lunch and breakfast and go there every day and wolf down 5 kilos from the salad bar. It got really popular - the only people that went in there would do the same. Never order Pizza, just the salad bar. Saved me a fortune.
Sometimes people would come in and complain that there was no salad to go with their $20 pizza. We'd tell them to complain to the manager. He'd complain to us, and we'd tell him he sold us the cards, better buy more salad. He tried to make us use smaller plates but we'd just chow down like pigs, noses in the salad bar. Then he tried to put nose guards around the bar but we broke them down.
Then suddenly the Pizza place closed and the new owners stopped offeing the all the salad you can eat for $20 per year. Now it's full of families who spend $20 each on pizza each visit. Shame really.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Wait till you see how high Comcast and friends jack up the prices once all desktop publishing and more is done online, and everyone's files are no longer stored locally. Not to mention net TV and phone continuing to expand. Did anyone NOT see this coming?
The thing is, the ISPs are in the same situation that the North American auto companies are in. They twiddled their thumbs and failed to innovate and keep ahead of the trends, and now they're crying for handouts.
Boo hoo, Toyota got the jump on us, and we're losing market share. Boo hoo, we didn't pay attention when web content providers got creative and started offering heavier media.
When did North America lose it's drive to innovate? Push the boundries? The ISPs should have been upgrading the networks a decade ago.
Time to deregulate and let some foreign company with vision jump in and start laying fiber like it's... actually... in demand!