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Virgin Media CEO Says Net Neutrality Is Already Gone
Virgin Media CEO Says Net Neutrality is "A Load of Bollocks". Anyone here been shaken down by their Internet Service Provider? "The new CEO of Virgin Media is putting his cards on the table early, branding net neutrality 'a load of bollocks' and claiming he's already doing deals to deliver some people's content faster than others... If you aren't prepared to cough up the extra cash, he says he'll put you in the Internet 'bus lane.'"
...is every one of his Slashdot-using customers running to cancel their accounts and find 'net access elsewhere - even if the data gets sent down a wet piece of string.
The point is not whether companies can get higher bandwidth by paying more. What has people angry is the idea that their cable provider might deny them the full bandwidth that they paid for when they connect to certain content providers or use VOIP.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Hell, ask the average Joe Sixpack if they'd like to have their American Idol episodes download faster at the expense of a bunch of pasty faced nerds not being able to access Slashdot at the same speed, I'm sure they'll be quite happy about it.
By what name do you wish to be mourned?
An anguished, collective shout of horror and surprise emanates from Virgin Media's PR department: "Nooooooooooo!!!"
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
"If you aren't prepared to cough up the extra cash, he says he'll put you in the Internet 'bus lane'."
Let me see if I've got this right - if I don't pay him money, he'll put me in the subsidized lane that contains no other traffic?
Errm, OK. Much obliged!
Isn't the whole point of bus lanes to keep the buses moving in rush hour traffic? Not the best analogy for a Virgin wannabe-mobster to be using to coerce content providers to cough up.
I doubt it.
"You wanna do it without a condom? It'll cost you..."
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Ok, summary and title have virgin, internet, balls (bollocks), and media in it. Alright, all we need is MS, conspiracy and goatse before we have and uberstory.
Finally a company is honest enough to admit that net neutrality doesn't exist. Here in Canada, almost every ISP is throttling torrents, throttling DSL 'nodes', circumventing advertisements for their own, prioritizing certain web pages, and worse. This is rarely publicized until some intelligent people discover it and bring it to light and since there's no rules or laws, it's perfectly acceptable by everyone but the consumer.
...he's already doing deals to deliver some people's content faster than others... IANAL, so does anybody know if these kinds of deals might have the effect of invalidating an ISP's 'common carrier' protections?If so, I vote we prosecute him for downloading child porn, as a modern-day equivalent of walking the plank, and a warning to the other ISPs...
Yarrrrr!
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
In one way it is refreshing to hear a CEO describe in truth what is going on whether one agrees with him/her or not. Usually a CEO stands behind innuendos and words with double meanings to avoid a head on collision. Not so with this one apparently.
It happens that I believe that all should have equal access but then I do not run an ISP. It seems clear that multiple levels of service can be commanded by varying levels of payments. Sort of like steak or hamburger.
It will be interesting to see how all of this finally works out.
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
This blatant confession by Virgin Media is the best news yet for the Net Neutrality movement. Because the main argument of the enemies of Net Neutrality (who are therefore the promoters of Net Doublecharge) has always been that "equal access is never threatened", while usually contradictorily also saying "unequal access will be necessary to pay for increased capacity". Now Virgin Media is just admitting that's all a bunch of BS, and they're so hellbent on destroying the equal access for everyone that they already do it.
This is an industry claiming we don't need our equal access protected. And now, at the same time, telling us that it's gone, and we're whining too much because they've already destroyed it.
The enemy has blinked. There now should follow a backlash that will guarantee that we don't continue to give away our most profitable, most strategic global asset, that the public paid to invent, and build and promote, to those crooks who will say anything to steal it. And evidently are now so arrogant that they'll even admit they've already stolen it. Even though they haven't, or at least not so much that we can't take it back.
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Have you missed the whole Phorm issue, where BT have essentially admitted to illegally intercepting thousands of customers' data and giving it to an ex-spyware company?
Which they now plan to roll out across the board, with an opt-out clause that essentially says "we'll be collecting all the data anyway, but promise not to give it to anybody".
Net neutrality means you can't bill your competitor's customers. This is absolutely essential to a free market.
See, there are actually four parties involved. The end user, Bob, buys a connection from an ISP, CableCo. Meanwhile, example.com, buys a connection from a different ISP, ExampleOnline. CableCo and ExampleOnline are competitors, but they have a peering agreement, which means that they agree to share the costs of a connection which lets Bob visit example.com. What's happening here is that CableCo is trying to get money from example.com. But example.com is ExampleOnline's customer! If ExampleOnline's customers are generating traffic which CableCo can't handle, then they need to renegotiate their peering agreement, not go after ExampleOnline's customers. That's unethical and possibly illegal.
Mr Rose, check out www.bethere.co.uk they hump everyone else on price(bang for buck) at 22 per month for up to 25mb down and 2.5mb up! they also do not have limits on downloads. swapped to them last november and am loving it HUGE they also have 24 hour tech and customer support. they truly kick ass. hope your exchange has their equipment bud. luckily i stay close to my exchange so and pretty near full tilt!
I'm pleased overall with my Entanet DSL. All the resellers seem to offer the same price packages, so I use UKFSN (no association with them other than as a customer) who use all of their profits to fund UK free software projects. The business packages are reasonably priced and seem to be the closest thing you can get to a direct, neutral, non 'managed' connection these days. They also offer genuine unlimited packages, although the prices might be a bit of a shock to people used to the so-called unlimited offerings from other ISPs.
The one thing that I would fault them on is their data transfer allowance system. Basically the penalty fees for going a few GB over the limit will add about 50% to that month's bill.
Assuming (since I am not an expert on this) that the prioritisation of content is being done by some sort of prioritising of packets then it is a mutually exclusive situation. The line is only so fast - the line contains only so much bandwidth. If all providers pay to have their content prioritised then nothing moves any "faster" than it is with neutrality. If only one pays to have their content "faster" then all they are doing is degrading all other traffic.
ISP provisions need to be revolutionised - the current crop are perfectly happy as a hegemony of providers - do what they like, charge what they like. There is "competition" in only a very superficial sense.
What if Google stopped responding to requests from Virgin customers? I think Virgin would cave in pretty quickly.
I paid to invent and build that Internet that Virgin Media is now holding hostage for charging ransom against the billing model that made it worth holding for ransom. That's not a "free market", except in the corporate handouts you "Libertarians" love to pretend is "free" because you'd love to be the next ripoff artist yourself.
So I'm not "fighting WW2", a ridiculous comment from yet another Anonymous Libertarian Coward. I'm trying to keep some corporate interloper from ruining something that's too important to ignore. And as a trivial side skirmish, I'm slapping down your nonsense about a "free market" that erupts across an open Internet only because it does have equal access.
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make install -not war
We're on Virgin ADSL. About one month ago, someone hacked our WEP and started leaching. It was all my fault - I'd replaced a router, didn't lock down by MAC address, and they locked on.
We noticed slowdowns / issues but didn't call Virgin until my wife determined these always happened after 4PM. This was after some three weeks of slowdowns.
Called Virgin's "pay as you go support", where a technician cheerfully told us we'd been capped due to a violation of AUP.
Ok. Someone had leached our connection. Our fault. But it took TWO weeks to get uncapped.
All this after several weeks of leaching - which impacted ALL customers on our local net mind you - no email, no call, nothing. Until we incurred expense calling their "pay as you go support".
Virgin's shaping is poorly executed, and heavy handed.
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This coming from Virgin, a brand whose business model and valuation depends entirely on its coolness factor... I am speechless...
Napoleon used to say: "I fear three newspapers more than a hundred thousand bayonets."
I hesitate between thanking this guy to state openly what the other ISP's have worked hard to disguise and warning him to watch the speed at which his brand will disintegrate...
Because, indeed, as the parent implies, Virgin's scheme means the end of the Internet as we know it, and we are really, really, not going to be happy about it...
It's only faster until they decide to shake down your favorite site or service. Then you might as well have dial up.
Their brazen admission of these practices is not better than alleged shameful practices. Both are wrong and both lead to the same place if the other companies are determined to rip everyone off. The practice can't be hidden for long, so what you have is a choice between ignorant leadership that may be evil or plain evil. Both suck.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I see this as one area where Google, MS and Yahoo can show some real leadership. Don't hand over any extra money, and if the customer's ISP is a known throttler, then place a message at the top of each page stating "The page you have requested is being slowed down by your internet provider. Click here to find out why and what you can do about it". If the three biggest websites and their other websites (remember that Google owns YouTube and Yahoo owns Flickr) all put this message on, the backlash against the ISP would be way too big. Remember that speed is relative, especially when downloading webpages. Telling the user to expect the pages slower then usual will give the user the impression it is, even if the ISP hasn't yet started throttling.
If I was some content provider like a youtube knock off or something and I got some bullshit shakedown letter asking for money or they'll limit the download speed at my site, I'd note the ISP sending it and put a blatent note on every video playing page that said "If _____ is your ISP, they're purposely slowing down video streaming on this site. To view videos at full speed, switch to another ISP." That would really burn their ass. You get enough of those messages around the internet on high traffic sites and everyone will get a really bad image of that ISP really fast and switch like crazy. That would be the end of that crap and it would force net nuetrality faster than any law would.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
How do you think the cable companies got started? One cable at a time.
You left out one government granted monopoly to use the right of way at a tyme.
FalconShould there be a Law?
If you ditch net neutrality, each content provider has to negotiate contracts with every connectivity provider. So if there are N content providers and M ISPs, the system needs up to M*N contracts to function. That's a huge market inefficiency. Since ditching net neutrality doesn't magically create more bandwidth (it only prioritizes it), the system as a whole has gained zero additional capability at the cost of an enormous amount of extra paperwork. It's a classic tragedy of the commons, where each individual acting in their own best interests will result in the worst possible outcome for the system as a whole.
Also, the ISPs have yet to realized that this is a two-way street. If they start charging unaffiliated content providers extra money, the natural response is going to be content providers "unionizing" to increase their negotiating clout. Suddenly they'll be demanding lower network connectivity prices than they were initially charged. "You ISPs are getting money from other content providers, but haven't dropped your prices! We demand the prices you charge us reflect your new cost of operation."
The end result of all this will be a lot of running around to arrive at exactly where we started. It's stupid, wasteful, and inefficient. That's why net neutrality makes sense. If there's a bandwidth problem, the solution is to add more bandwidth; none of this stealing from the right hand to pay the left silliness.
The government builds and operates the interstate highway system for the common benefit of all. It's not much of a stretch to see the advantages of them building and operating a public data network, too.
As a bonus for the security-minded, if the government operated the public network, they wouldn't have to go cap-in-hand to the private sector for permission to monitor traffic. There are cameras on all the major highway intersections, and no one complains. The same could be done for a data network.
Governments aren't as cost-effective as private enterprise, but they have the terrific advantage of operating more in the public eye. For a public resource, this is an extremely valuable characteristic.
The fact is, telecom doesn't operate in a free market, so almost none of the normal arguments for letting private enterprise take the lead are valid. Competition doesn't truly exist, so corporations are free to invent ever more resourceful ways to make us pay more for less.
At the very least, a publicly-run network would be more responsive to ordinary users who at least have a vote. As it stands now, we really are at the telecomm's mercy.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Well, maybe in their imaginations. But that "libertarian" was hustling for exactly that kind of rigged market. Which is the only kind of market I've ever seen any "actual" libertarian hustle for in reality.
Maybe you're referring to some characters in an Ayn Rand novel. Those are all fiction.
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make install -not war
The service was great while my ISP was Blueyonder, but then the "Bearded Demon" (Richard Branson) and his hooded Virgin Media hordes took them over. Now I can't download a single TV program from ITunes without being throttled into oblivion. What's the point of broadband when you just get throttled when you use it?
I ask because this is the second time in as many days I've heard someone say this so I'm intrigued to know why and where people are hearing this from?
DSL ZoneIf you look at sites like this:
ISP Reviewor this:
They're fairly consistently rated as almost worst ISP there is.
I'm wondering if Virgin have run some kind of successful whisper campaign to hide the truth about their service?
The connections are in the posts to which I'm replying. They're not just "general attacks", they're counterattacks to what some libertarian has attacked me with.
:P.
One problem with libertarians is that you don't properly distinguish between the specific and the general. Like when you just capitalized "Libertarianism": that's the specific ideology of the Libertarian Party, not the general ideology of the political philosophy.
That tendency to conflation also underwrites the thinking in that entire post you just made. I never said "well, [l]ibertariams support the free market, and this happened in a free market, so, ummm DEATH TO LIBERTARIANS!" or anything close. In fact, I pointed out that the market in which Virgin's making its grab is not free, just the most obvious way in which your contrived "summary" is unconnected to reality. But it is a self-serving oversimplification, from a libertarian, so of course I should dignify it with the respect of a logical response
Libertarianism is political extremism, worshiping liberty while ignoring every other value, fetishizing a reductionist logic ad absurdum. I've had to deal with it for years, as generation after generation discovers Ayn Rand and "the virtue of selfishness" for itself, as if the world were brand new. There's as little chance of clear and reasoned debate about extremist libertarianism as there is about any other fundamentalism, as I've learned over and again for so long. No, it's much better to just laugh at it, because it's really better as a joke. Taking it seriously is just much too sad.
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make install -not war