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In EU, Google Accused of YouTube "Free Ride"
An anonymous reader passes along a Financial Times piece that covers a push by EU telecoms to get Google to pay them directly — years after US ISPs began rattling that sword, to little effect thus far. "Some of Europe's leading telecoms groups are squaring up for a fight with Google over what they claim is the free ride enjoyed by the technology company's YouTube video-sharing service. Telefónica, France Telecom, and Deutsche Telekom all said Google should start paying them for carrying bandwidth-hungry content such as YouTube video over their networks.... Some European telecoms groups fear Google will reduce them to 'dumb pipes' because the internet search and advertising company pays the network operators little or nothing for carrying its content. Rick Whitt, a senior policy director at Google in Washington ... said Google was spending large amounts on its own data networks to carry its traffic to the point where it is handed over to telecoms companies round the world." Note that FT.com operates on a "first few per month free" paywall basis.
Google had to, sooner or later, start fighting such a fight. Interesting is that European, and not Asian or American, ISPs are engaging it. Who wins this fight ? It could have a big impact upon how the internet looks in a few years.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Google bought some bandwidth to be able to send site content to users. Those users bought some bandwidth to be able to receive it. What's the problem?
Some European telecoms groups fear Google will reduce them to 'dumb pipes'
And I 'dumb pipe' is all I ever expected from my ISP, and it is what I'm paying for! If they want Google to pay for delivering the content, I will get access for free, right? Bullshit.
Yes, those poor telecoms that gives their users free access to the internet must be paid back by Google. How does Google dares to provide content and expect the charity telecoms to be the only ones that pay for those bills. I'm outraged.
Wait a minute....
Then why my telecom is sending me a monthly fee?
Dear telecomns, in case you have not noticed: you are 'dumb pipes' and always were. Get over it, stop whining and start providing the bandwidth you advertise.
Google should just tell those telecom companies to block YouTube from their networks if they think it's taking up too much bandwidth. Let's see who suffers.
The European Telecom operators should know that we, Internet subscribers, pay for our connection top Euros to be able to access sites like Google, Gmail or Youtube. Google is offering most of their services for free to their users and we, as clients of the Telecom companies, are already paying.
At least, Spain's Telefonica CEO demonstates he's just a parasite that doesn't know about what he's talking except getting more money from Google and their clients. If you understand the Spanish talked by a almost drunk man, you'll get the point watching this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVADWAxOZtg
If they complain about high traffic from google/youtube they should block them and let their users decide themselves if they want a ISP that will provide these services.
If we're not going to buy into net neutrality, why does it follow that google should pay the telecoms? Why shouldn't they pay google for enhancing their service?
If google stopped serving pages to people connecting through specific ISPs, those ISPs would go under. Who here wouldn't change their provider if they couldn't get google? You wouldn't really be on the net without google.
Like, the customers? If I'm paying for 10GB of data at 10Mbps each month, and the ISP is oversubscribed to uselessness, that's not Google's vault, that's the ISP's false advertising at work.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Note to telecoms: You were, are, and always will be, dumb pipes. Stop complaining, it used to be that you guys made respectable money selling dumb pipes to people who needed them. Of course, that was back before you became a bunch of bloated gasbags intent on squeezing every last packet out of the internet.
120 characters isn't enough to explain it.
Dear Mr. NuttyProf,
we have noticed you've been having a personal web site since 1993. With the statistics you graciously provide publicly we gather, that your site gets accessed several dozen times per month. Since we provide the channels bringing your content to our customers, we'd like to request you to review the attached contract and initiate a monthly fee of $14.95 in order for us to continue to serve your needs in the high quality you have come to expect of us....
Sincerely,
AnyOfTheLargeISPs
It's not like these telecoms customers are paying them for access to the Internet, so they need to get their revenue from somewhere. Oh, wait...
This is not cable TV, you can't "unbundle premium channels", stop clinging to your ancient business models and come up with a good one.
What I don't think they've fully thought out is the end-game. Possible options:
1) Google pays them. Google then starts getting invoices from every ISP around, from the little mom-and-pops to the tier-1s demanding a cut of the pie.
2) Google cuts them off so that the above doesn't happen. These ISPs customers start screaming "Why am I paying you for access to the Internet, when you aren't providing it?" and they start switching to other providers that aren't pulling this.
Come on, telcoms! You're already charging users for access to the Internet, and the businesses they visit for access to the Internet. How many more times do you need to get paid?
They seem to think they're in a position of power because they control the "eyeballs", but those eyeballs will go to another provider if you don't provide access to the services they want.
Telefónica is like neandertal people, really. I have read some declarations from the director, and I was forced to check the date.. I was like a talk from the dictator Franco. And France Telecom is everything that is wrong with corportations plus everything that is wrong by govern owned industry.
Can these two companys die, please?
-Woof woof woof!
This is like suing a car manufacturer because somebody got run over by a car they created.
A better car analogy might be highway operators trying to charge manufacturers of SUVs as they take up more space when driven by motorists on the toll-road.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Indeed. The bit that really got me was:
Some European telecoms groups fear Google will reduce them to 'dumb pipes'
That is really all that they are, or at least should be. They are not content providers, they are merely facilitators.
which is totally what she said
There's a net neutrality conference organised by french regulators with people from google and FTC, video stream is available RIGHT NOW with real time english translation here: http://video.arcep.fr/arcep_13042010_en.html
All this bitching, be it in the US or the EU, is just about the telecoms wanting to double-dip. All bandwidth is paid for, one way or another. In the case of extremely large connections, like connections between Tier-1 ISPs, the cost is shared between the two ISPs. When they peer, it is an agreement where they say "You pay the costs of your equipment and lines, we'll pay the costs of ours, and we don't charge each other anything to trade data." At every level down from there, it is paid by a smaller consumer. If you are a smaller ISP, you pay the bigger ones for access to their networks. Individuals, businesses, etc then pay those ISPs for access to their network. All the bandwidth is being paid for.
They just want to double charge. They want to tell Google that they should have to pay because Google's data goes over their network.
Of course, if push came to shove, I'd bank on Google winning. Dumbass ISP X says "Ok, we are throttling Google traffic and/or blocking Youtube." Google says "Ok, we are blacklisting all your IPs and showing your users a page that explains what dicks you are and what you need to change for us to restore access." My bet? Consumers get furious at their ISP and either force a change, or simply switch to a new one.
Providing bandwidth for their users to do what they want? Is that the purpose of ISP?
Or is there any other purpose? Like laying down ground rules, like the Ten Commandments:
1. Thou Shalt Not View Video Online
2. Thou Shalt Not Use Too Much Bandwidth
3. Thou Shalt Pay Through Thy Nose
4. Thou Shalt Obey Everything
5. Thou Shalt Hath No Right
6. Thou Shalt Be Grateful
7. Thou Shalt Giveth Us All Thy Money
8. Thou Shalt Sacrifice Thy First Child For Us
9. Thou Shalt Let Us Screw You
10. Thou Shalt Not Complaint
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Yes, pulling out of Europe is a valid option. No customers there.
A dumb pipe is precisely what you are, and should continue being.
Those YouTube megabytes are being requested by end users. It is they who are getting the "ride" - and it is usually not free. Google/YouTube is just making content available on demand - as is just about every other data supplier on the net except spammers. The only people getting a free ride are spammers, because they are using a "push" mode. Before they stop or slow my YouTube, which I want, let them do something about spam.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
On one hand we have content providers like Murdoch saying Google should pay them for the content Google is providing access to.
And on the other hand we have telcos saying Google should pay them because they're providing access to Google's content.
It's the fate of any success story; Google has money, they want it for themselves, and they think it's easier to get Google's than to earn their own.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Yeah, yeah, you're all saying "this is crazy, I've already paid for my bandwidth"...and you're all correct, but: /. passim : FCC in USA, filtering in Australia...)
As we've seen here recently, common sense or 'fairness' seems to have little to do with ISP regulation and/or behaviour.
(See
Here in Europe, many countries tax blank media and playback devices [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy] in order to 'compensate' artists for 'lost' revenue.
How long before Europe's telcos, (most of whom have strong lobbying power), actually get something like this either legislated, or get Google to cough up some money just by threatening to get it legislated?
They're already trying to grab some of Google's ad revenue:
"French President Nicolas Sarkozy is mulling a recommendation to impose a tax on Internet ad revenues in France. The proposal is aimed at helping the French culture industries survive the new digital age. But critics say it is absurd, unworkable and will do little more than prop up failing business models."
[http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,670837,00.html]
Given that it was a European (well, Briton, but it is on "that" side of the Atlantic), working at a European facility, that mucked up a perfectly good Internet with this "web" thingie, all of the non-maintenance traffic other than mail, telnet, and ftp should be billed to the EU, plus a royalty for Al Gore, since he invented the entire thing.
The ISPs have it all backwards, presumably with full knowledge of the real problem. The customer pays for a connection to the internet. The customer then uses it to access popular services, like Youtube or Facebook or any other of this months fad.
Many ISP has vastly oversold their capacity to their customers and engaged in price fights that has made internet access well below what they should cost. They know its going to be a cold day in hell before the customers agree on a big price hike this late in the game so they try to wring money out of the popular services the customers use their bandwidth on.
Since the ISPs sell access to the internet they have nothing, absolutely nothing they can demand from services on the internet. They made this mess by charging to little for all to much bandwidth, well, sucks to be wrong dont it?
HTTP/1.1 400
Google bought some bandwidth to be able to send site content to users. Those users bought some bandwidth to be able to receive it. What's the problem?
Technically Google doesn't buy lots of bandwidth nowadays, the way people might imagine. They instead hook directly to many peers and at the backbones. That said, when the rest of us pay for "bandwidth", we pay exactly for building and maintaining the kind of infrastructure Google built themselves. But it explains why on the surface you can spin it like they did.
....any ISP that thinks Google isn't playing fair should just not allow connections to the Google Empire for their customers.
Then we'll see how long it takes for the free-market to self correct. I give it about 30 days, most of that time being required for the ISP to staff up their disconnections department.
Before using that analogy remember that some toll roads already charge you more if you have a bigger vehicle and people seem to think that is ok.
- Raynet --> .
"This starts to look like a circular dependency. We might as well not charge anybody and thereby save money on accounting."
Remminds me of the story about the rich man and the poor village....A rich man walks into a hotel in a poor village where all the bussinesses are in debt. He gives the hotelier $100 for a room on the condition that if he doesn't like it he will take the money back and leave. The hotelier gives him the keys, confident the rich man will like the room he takes the $100 and pays the grocer for the food he bought on credit. The grocer takes the $100 and pays back the farmer the money he owes him, the farmer uses it to pay back the blacksmith who then goes to the hotel to pay off his debt to the hooker who in turn gives it to the hotelier for past rent. The rich man comes back dissatisfied with the room, takes the $100 and leaves the village. Nothing has changed but the village is now debt free.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
That's what they should be, they are ISPs...
Maybe their concern is that it'll become obvious to everyone that they're dumb pipes, and that they're dumb pipes whose business model, pricing infrastructure can't cope with piping all that well.
Duh. STFU and just stop peering with them if you don't want the traffic. Of course then your customers won't get anything back when they request pages from Google. Good luck with that. Maybe they'll feel better when you pass along all your network cost savings to them. Right.
Bullshit PR aside, the facts are plain: Your continuing to peer with Google is proof you believe you derive positive economic value by serving Google's content. Given this reality, maybe now you can explain carefully why Google owes you something?
And when you're done answering that question, how about this one: Why is it that with TV distribution it's the cable providers paying the content providers, not vice versa as you'd propose Google do? Why shouldn't you be owing them money, for turning your dumb pipes into something people will pay $50 a month for?
This is journalism? Does the Financial Times just run press releases now?
Now it seems that my innocent advice ruined everything... I'm sorry.
Not really, it's more like the highway operators charging motorists tolls, and then trying to get the destination cities/towns/villages to pay as well.
I notice that all on the companies mentioned are ex-state-owned companies. Basically they're the old monopoly telecoms who got to lay the telephone lines in the past using taxpayer's money and later got privatised, keeping ownership of all that infrastructure.
Even though in most (maybe all) of the countries where those companies are based laws were passed forcing them to provide access through their lines to any company wanting to work as an ISP (a boon to competition and why Internet access is faster an cheaper in most of Europe than in the US) they are still meaningful because they own the last-mile infrastructure and get paid by ISPs that use those lines to provide Internet access.
They still retain many of the bad habits from their days as a state own monopoly (big, fat and uncompetitive) and have only remained in their positions because of the huge barriers to entry in the landline telecoms infrastructure business.
Given that I would say that these big, fat behmots are worried about high-bandwith Internet services because they have in fact not updated the infrastructure:
- Until now they were relying in advances in xDSL technology to provide ever increasing speeds on top of the existing POTS copper lines. This improving of xDSL technologies is now slowing down while at the same time government have suddenly discoverd it's fashionable to rant about the need for universal high-speed Internet access to "liberate Europe's creative energies" and "Create the jobs of the future". This means that a critical mass is building that would lower the barriers to entry (or make it a better investment) to lay fiber-to-the-home.
Once other companies have replaced enough of the installed base of last-mile POTS copper wires with fiber these guys (who never had to face any real competition in the landline telecoms business) will likelly shrink to nothingness.
This is why they're trying to hold the tide.
If they aren't dumb pipes does that mean the ISP's will pay Google as part of the settlement if someone successfully sues youtube? If they want to play that game it has to work both ways.
Google is now providing the traditional email, storage and content services that were once part of the expected role and expense of running an ISP.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I agree that they are dumb pipes, however, that got me thinking about the arrangement I have with my cable company. What's the difference between the data (content) I am receiving over my net connection, and the data (content) I am receiving as my television service? I don't mean the bits and bytes here, I mean the actual content. My cable company would like to call themselves a 'content' provider, but they aren't making those television programs, they are simply passing them to me through a pipe. That being said, why should that part of my service be any different from my internet?
This is sticky because I realize that the actual content providers GET PAID to have their shows broadcast/provided. Does that mean that the internet is upside down? Should the local ISP's actually be paying Google for their content?
Remminds me of the story about the rich man and the poor village....A rich man walks into a hotel in a poor village where all the bussinesses are in debt. He gives the hotelier $100 for a room on the condition that if he doesn't like it he will take the money back and leave. The hotelier gives him the keys, confident the rich man will like the room he takes the $100 and pays the grocer for the food he bought on credit. The grocer takes the $100 and pays back the farmer the money he owes him, the farmer uses it to pay back the blacksmith who then goes to the hotel to pay off his debt to the hooker who in turn gives it to the hotelier for past rent. The rich man comes back dissatisfied with the room, takes the $100 and leaves the village. Nothing has changed but the village is now debt free.
And that's is how things would work in a sane world. (Minus the prostitute.)
And by "Sane" I mean, "Free of Usury". In fact, things would work even better than that, because the Sun keeps pumping energy into the system. The planet is one gigantic solar collector. Logically, scarcity should only ever be a temporary situation at the worst of times because there is simply so much raw energy freely available. But that's not how it works in reality. Why?
Because of the cowardice of the Dark Side and their fear of the Universe and their resulting desire to control all variables so that nothing can hurt their precious, delicate little selves.
I've been trying to boil the idea down to a single sentence. I've not quite managed it yet, but this is what I've got so far to explain how the world has been set up in the ultimate con job. . .
All the money in the world is provided by the banking system. The way all of that money first gets into circulation is by being borrowed by the public and by governments. Borrowing is done at interest. If the banks decide to call in all of those debts, then all the money in the world is now gone. Except interest is still owing. So where does the money come from to pay that interest?
The money isn't the valuable thing. Debt IS, because it automatically creates slaves.
The banks create slaves, and thus control over the entire populace.
That's the con job. It is exactly this simple, and it is exactly how it was intended to work by those who created it.
The way out of the trap is to unplug from dependence upon interest bearing currency. There are many ways to do this. Can you think of any of them? Double points to those who can solve for the big ticket items, such as housing.
Have a nice day!
-FL
Just think - If the only websites you knew about was the ones that you found by clicking links on websites that you started with or ones you learned about from other people. For example: Digg or Slashdot would lead to many new sites, but pdp11.org might not take you much out of it's content realm. A vast portion of the Internet would be unavailable.
They were dumb pipes even before... Imagine how it would be if they were not, you are talking on the phone with a friend and one of you mentions Pizza, suddenly a local Pizza delivery place is connected in to the conversation and asks if you would like to order a Pizza (You and your friend were actually just talking about how the Pizza made you both sick recently)
Or even more chilling, one of you mentions some thing that, taken out of the context of your conversation, seems dangerous or illegal - and the phone call is dropped. You were planning an attack in World of Warcraft or one of the Battle Simulators and click, no phone call anymore.
No Telcos have *always* been dumb pipes.
No, but you implied it by saying the previous incarnation of these companies had their infrastructure paid for with taxpayer funds, then the new private companies got to "keep" that infrastructure. They didn't keep it, they bought it.
Words have meanings, and if you can't be bothered to use the right ones to convey your thoughts you're going to continue to have misunderstandings like this. You need to do a better job of expressing yourself.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
And in the US it has never applied to ISPs no matter how many times it is falsely claimed on Slashdot that ISPs are common carriers.
"How dare you provide the interesting, high-bandwidth content that help us sell our high-priced internet connections! We want a piece of that action!"
Yes, ISPs, it's time to demand your rights! And the movement is growing:
Justice will roll like a mighty tide!
If the ISPs don't want to be just dumb pipes, they will have to meet the requirements. Firstly, they must stop being dumb. As long as they are dumb, they won't advance. To not be just a pipe, they'll have to build something else their customers will want more than they want google. I suggest they get busy hiring the world's best and brightest for premium salaries and start building various internet based services that their customers actually want enough to willingly forgo access to google.
If they are dumb and all they have built is a pipe, they shouldn't be surprised that they are considered to be a dumb pipe.