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Verizon's Plan To Turn the Web Into Pay-Per-View
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Bill Snyder writes of Verizon's diabolical plan to to charge websites for carrying their packets — a strategy that, if it wins out, will be the end of the Internet as we know it. 'Think of all the things that tick you off about cable TV. Along with brainless programming and crummy customer service, the very worst aspect of it is forced bundling. ... Now, imagine that the Internet worked that way. You'd hate it, of course. But that's the direction that Verizon, with the support of many wired and wireless carriers, would like to push the Web. That's not hypothetical. The country's No. 1 carrier is fighting in court to end the Federal Communications Commission's policy of Net neutrality, a move that would open the gates to a whole new — and wholly bad — economic model on the Web.'"
...trying to offer us the web a la carte, like we wanted for cable? The whole web is one big bundle! There's tons of crap I don't want to pay for! :)
They're a carrier. To expect Verizon or AT&T etc to behave like a wonderful, equitable business partner is to expect the earth to move from orbit on the propulsion of sparrow flatulence.
Charging for stuff is what they do, and they will relentlessly continue to try. And each time, like every other time, we'll crush them.
Do your part: tell those crazy telecom guys: monopolies were granted, not earned. We'll take away your easements, your rights of way, your utility company plates, and your seat at the table-- again. Your bribes to Congress and the legislature, and your armies of highly paid lawyers will lose once more, but you big bad boys-- you'll go back to your shareholders and exclaim one more time: we tried!!
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
So...it'll suck for a little while.
And then we'll just end up rebuilding the internet via wireless nodes or something similar. They screw with this, we'll move on to something else, just like... Cable.
Seems like there's a simple solution. Verizon's only choice is to try and degrade service for sites that don't pay. If all sites refuse to pay then customers will complain about the degraded service and possibly choose other ISPs. Customers that want to prevent this sort of behavior can simply refuse to visit or given business to sites that do work these sorts of deals. Thus discouraging both sides from doing this. Vote with your wallets people.
Because by the time this happens, I'll be on a beach in Panama, with no electricity, no internet and no need for either. Just me, a case of rum, a nice cool breeze and the sound of waves gently lapping at my feet. Verizon & FB can suck it.
... ...
"Broadband providers possess 'editorial discretion.' Just as a newspaper is entitled to decide which content to publish and where, broadband providers may feature some content over others," Verizon's lawyers argue
Does this mean that RIAA, MPAA and all the other AAs can sue the carrier for transmitting copyrighted data?
as long as I get to charge Verizon a fee for stringing their lines across my driveway and radiating their wireless signals over my entire property.
I'll be cheap, $0.01 per square foot of my land they operate on or over, which at 1 acre that's $435.60 per month. I'll be waiting by the mailbox.
They'd like their business model back - oh wait it failed......
Monopolizing greed only benefits the greedy. I see this as the writing on the wall, goodbye Verizon, the consumer has spoke. I sought a different carrier after dismal service from Verizon. If this is the future of phone service, then I'll go back to a land line with a rotary dial. Since few people will understand my last statement, it will be the most secure system ever.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
You already do. It's part of the spectrum rent that ultimately goes into the government's general fund, theoretically toward easing your tax burden by a few pennies.
That's just NOT how the Internet works.
Opportunities and incentives are inconceivably enormous. A whole new type of smuggler will arise. It's great. Bring it on!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The FCC shouldn't be the regulator here. The FTC should because this is anti-competitive.
For whatever government regulators are worth.
When it comes down to it Verizon can shit in one hand and charge in the other and in the end they will have a hand full of shit and no customers.
Historically , there have been loads of schemes since the inception of the internet to charge extra, they are all as successful as flapping your arms really hard to fly.
Usually this is the seismic activity that occurs just before a company hires a fleet of "consultants" to streamline....
Sh'long Verizon, we hardly cared for ye.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Can you hear me NOW?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Just simply de-peer them.
Name: removed from DNS
IP Address: re-sold
Can website owners charge Verizon for coming to the site? It'd be fun to see how they handle a bill for usage. Oh, and add in admin fees, billing fee, premium use fee, primetime use fee, off peak use fee, per byte use fee, admin fee for counting byte usage, server usage charges, server maintenance charges, gov't tax fee, cross border off-set fee, environmental off-set fees, off/on season fees, grounds fees, snack fees, and general labor fees.
I can't fathom what you mean by content providers wasting bandwidth.
I pay for a pipe, I expect to be able to send and receive packets to whomever I want. It's up to me as the user to decide if I'm wasting bandwidth. If I don't want to pay as much and save money then I should consider how to use less bandwidth.
The problem is that ISPs have been getting away with overprovisioning, underdelivering on bandwidth promises and pocketing the massive profits. If you can't make money with people using the bandwidth you sold them then perhaps you should price your product accordingly. If you're selling burst speeds and not explaining to customers your limits then it's your own fault.
The websites aren't forcing their packets through Verizon's networks. Verizon's customers are requesting them. Wouldn't it make more sense, to say, charge the customers (that they already have contracts with) every month for a certain amount of usage, then charge more if they exceed that?
Oh wait...
You, the user -- especially if you are a typical, naive user -- have no idea how much bandwidth you are using. Nor do you know whether the app you downloaded just to "access" a service actually turns your computer into a server, which the content provider hopes will be hosted on the ISP's network for free. ISPs are not making massive profits -- in part due to shenanigans such as these. But Google has multiple monopolies and is making billions.
8/10 would almost respond seriously again.
Keep on knockin'
https://robbiecrash.me
is the company you work for, in a similar manner as health insurance, offers "unlimited Internet access" as one of the perks of working there. They'll cover the cost of your being able to surf however much and wherever you'd like (within the guidelines of the EULA that you sign when you start work there) . Of course, it'll only happen via their proxy servers and thus with ads they can target based on your surfing habits (letting them present ads for their subsidiaries' products). Demographics of your habits will also be sold to whichever ad firm is the highest bidder.
Don't worry, your employer will more than make their money back. In fact, they'll make so much they'll be able to launch their own entertainment networks, offering internally developed shows to their employees and licensing the popular ones to other companies, months after their own employees get "exclusive access" to the shows when they come out.
But at least you won't have to deal with Verizon, right?
Bark less. Wag more.
Bearded Man: They are dismantling the sleeping middle class. More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096256/
Hosted for free? No. Your user is paying you for the transit in both directions.
If your users aren't aware of how much bandwidth they are using perhaps you as an ISP should so something to educate them.
Quite frankly, if ISPs want to limit bandwidth usage then they should be required to show the bandwidth usage that has been used and should be required to provide exact limits as to what customers are provided. This shouldn't be any different than how cell phone companies have to show minutes used.
Instead they've been getting away with marketing burst speeds and creating the appearance of unlimited bandwidth usage (when in reality most of the big ones will start threatening to turn you off if you're using too much).
You keep brining up Google. What service does Google have that turns a users system into a server in order to access the service?
In my particular case I know exactly how much bandwidth I'm using. I actually have Cacti graphs. The only major thing that I can think of that I use that turns my system into a server without being obvious is the downloader for some game updates that uses bittorrent. As an ISP I'd think you'd be thrilled because these clients typically prefer to talk to IPs that are in the same blocks and often save a lot of transit across your peers.
If you run an ISP and still don't understand that you're not the interesting part of the internet, then you have never understood your place on the 'net. ISPs exist for one reason, and one reason only: to allow people to access content. Period. The "Economic Balance" isn't "tipping towards content companies"...the content companies *are* *the* *things* *your* *customers* *want*. The only thing they want from you is to get to those companies (or each other). You are a conduit, a tube, even. Nothing more.
If your users want the traffic, then the content providers aren't "wasting" it...your customers (who are already paying you for those bits, I should point out) are using what they've paid for. Saying that content providers are wasting bandwidth is basically complaining that your users are actually *using* what you sold them...which is really not a winning argument.
Were you also fired for being insane?
I know how much bandwidth I'm paying for.
If an ISP cannot supply the bandwidth it has promised, if it has oversubscribed, than it should be prosecuted for the fraud it has committed.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
... has been destroyed by the NSA already, just that most didn't fully realized it yet. They can charge all they want, as internet will end being outside US borders anyway.
I have an idea, tell someone who might care. http://act.freepress.net/sign/Internet_sti_love/?source=conf
Then it sounds like the ISPs have a problem with their business model. Since Verizon, etc. are trying to fix it primarily through lobbying/legislation, it's kind of hard to feel sorry for them.
Shrug.
Back to the days when it was just dumb pipes.
I wonder if it would be possible to build our own truly decentralized "swarm-net" using a mesh of devices that talk directly to each other. Because it's looking more and more like we need something exacly like that.
I'm envisioning some sort of wireless uplink bridging device with a zero-configuration discovery protocol that seeks out and automatically connects nearby sibling devices. It would need to a wireless protocol with better range than 802.11, have distributed DNS and be IPv6-only between nodes. Such a device could be connected to a router's WAN port to serve as the single uplink or to a LAN port and serve as a bridging device to connect to Internet and "swarm-net" sites. We could keep on using all of the great Internet technologies and protocols. Everything would be encrypted. E-VREY-THING.
Obviously, adoption would be the biggest hurdle. But, yeah, we need something like that.
Will Verizone charge them as well?
Look, I pay for a class of service (5Mbit down, 640Kbit up.) Deliver that level of service. Period.
As long as I'm happy with the responsiveness of my system with that level of service, it's none of your god damned business what applications or websites I'm using or visiting to chew up what I've paid for.
Your "throttling" attempts and "bandwidth caps" are nothing more than trying to steal back what I've already paid for.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
> The regulations prohibit ISPs from charging more when content providers waste bandwidth or attempt to demand priority delivery of their content -- in short, when they ask for something for nothing.
Care to cite some *SPECIFIC* examples of Google asking for "something for nothing"? Please don't hesitate to get technical, we can handle it.
Verizon is playing in the region many other big interests have played in before: the chasm between the left and the right in Washington. As long as the left and right will not agree on a position they'd both gain from, there is a void through which they can drive and where courts and lawyers will make the decisions instead of the people; it's a terribly un-democratic outcome driven by the intersection of rotten politics and over-reaching courts.
On the far left, there is support for "net neutrality" driven by the usual left-wing economic arguments of "sharing" and "fairness" and fear that left-wing speech could get censored. On the far right, there is support for "net neutrality" driven by suspicion of abuse by big government-corporate partnerships and fear that right-wing speech could get censored. These two groups could come together in agreement with a healthy compromise on this issue, but companies like Verizon are counting on them to be so split on other issues that they will not work together on this one where their interests firmly align. These groups are the only ones who could really drive a good resolution.
The mushy-middle of the political spectrum in Washington is perfectly happy to do nothing. The center-right loves all things associated with big business (they'd embrace the kiddie porn industry if it was big enough and had a corporate logo and lots of campaign cash) and they gravitate to the Verizon argument that Verizon should be able to use its infrastructure as it sees fit; they'd happily let service providers do ANYTHING to the general public... resulting in a hyper-capable internet that is too expensive and exclusive for most people. The center-left loves all things associated with big government (they'd embrace the kiddie porn industry if it was a government agency with unionized employees) and they gravitate to the FCC argument in favor of any and all regulation... resulting in an internet insufficiently capitalized and maintained because nobody could make more than a government capped profit from it. Unlike the more-extreme left and right, however, the center-left and center-right in Washington are not particularly concerned with issues like this and therefore are not likely to get involved; they have bigger fish to fry.
If the Left and Right could get together they could drive legislation the middle would go-along with that would say to Verizon "if you get to treat internet traffic as yours and throttle/differential-price every packet then you must accept legal responsibility for every packet, including criminal charges if the packet contents are illegal and civil charges if the contents are actionable (libel, slander, copyright violations, etc).... but if you want to claim you have no control of the contents and are not liable and are entitled to all the legal protections you currently get (because you transport all packets equally), then you may not differentiate between packets when it suits you." In other words: a law could be crafted to allow a company to choose which model to use (take full control of all packets and assume responsibility, OR have no control of the packets and get a legal shield), and the free market would prevail (and "net neutrality" would be the position every provider would end-up choosing because it's the one that would be safer)
I don't think PPV for web sites makes much sense.
BUT I can see Verizon chomping at the bit regarding video streaming. It competes against their cable offering and their own PPV, and uses their infrastructure in an expensive way, for free. QoS for the web and QoS for Netflix streaming are two completely different ballgames.
If you're a decent ISP operator, good for you, but you're not MY ISP provider, and you're not my mobile provider. You're arguing on the side of AT&T and Verizon, whom I have constant problems with. You're arguing specifically against google. From my perspective, they give me free e-mail that works better than anything else, a free search engine that works better than anything else, and a free mobile phone operating system that works better than anything else. YOUR SIDE has done nothing but take my money and give me nothing. Google's side has done nothing but give me stuff for free (aside from my privacy, which the NSA stole anyway.)
Worse still, they let the camel's nose into the tent. Want to see censorship? Government blocking of sites? Even more intense spying on your Internet activities? If these regulations are not overturned, the precedent will open the door to all of those things.
You mentioned fearmongering? And the government is already doing both of those things a lot already.
They're paying $130 Billion to buy the remaining 45 percent of Verizon Wireless they don't already own. They obviously have some more "diabolical" plans to maximize their investment on infrastructure, be it wired or wireless.
Nonsense. The user, naive or not, paid for the service you offered them. If you can't deliver the service perhaps you shouldn't offer it?
An ISP's stance on net neutrality basically comes down to their view on the market. If I go to an ISP looking for access to the internet and their goal is to provide me the best internet access for my money, then they support net neutrality. Alternatively, if a customer paying you for internet access if viewed as a commodity to sell to large corporations, then net neutrality is a horrible injustice. I do applaud you for openly stating your company's position. No matter how much I hope your position fails, I do appreciate your open admission of it.
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
Looks like a BS site to me. InfoWorld, and only them, should be charged to deliver content to its customers, just like proposed by Verizon plan, look at the list of trackers and crap trying to load when you read TFA:
AMP Platform Advertising
BlueKai Beacons
ChartBeat Analytics
Demandbase Beacons
Disqus Widgets
DoubleClick Spotlight Beacons
Dynamic Logic Beacons
Eloqua Analytics
Facebook Connect Widgets
Google +1 Widgets
Google Analytics Analytics
Krux Digital Beacons
LinkedIn Widgets Widgets
Marchex Beacons
NetRatings SiteCensus Analytics
Omniture (Adobe Analytics) Beacons
Sailthru Horizon Beacons
ShareThis Widgets
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Seeing as you "run an ISP", I assume you actually understand how TCP/IP works. Actually reading your posts again I can see that might not be true. Here's a summary of how this "internet" thing works:
You see, I pay you ("the ISP") to carry my ("the customer") data to others ("your or some other ISP's customer"), and sometimes those sites send data back. When I pay you ("the ISP"), I pay a specific amount over a specific period of time for a specific amount of bandwidth and so does the site I am talking to.
Given those facts, by what fucking right do YOU think you get a say in what I can and cannot put in those packets of data that I paid you to carry for me? In addition, by what fucking right do YOU feel you can double dip by charging the people I communicate with more on top of the fees they already paid you for your bandwidth?
and money-greedy people those jerks!
I pay my ISP to view the internet. I give them my money to access exactly the sites they are complaining about. If they did not give me access to those sites I would not pay them. I think most customers feel the same way. Nobody pays $100 a month for broadband access so they can send an occasional email or look at wikipedia once in a while. Verizon should be thanking sites like Netflix for creating the demand that allows to get paid by lots and lots of people like me.
Of course, if Verizon wants to pay me for adding demand to their system (thus allowing them to charge the content providers) then I suppose I might think differently. They can't collect on both ends of the transaction while adding absolutely no value in the middle. Verizon - when do I get my check for watching Netflix?
And in other news a major airline said that it would add a "fuel bill" on top of current ticket prices, because obviously you are not paying enough... When I pay $X per month, I am paying to have packets delivered. When I run a website, my "host" pays $X per month to have those packets delivered. The web is nothing without all of us and if Verizon pushes forward with that lunacy then the Verizon "subnet" will be a cold, dark place.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I can say with authority that no ISP wants to limit what sites users can visit.
I've started an ISP, and managed 2 others.
I can say with authority that they most certainly DO want to limit what sites users can visit, especially when it means them making more money in some other way.
The shill is you asshole. Bandwidth is ridiculously cheap to everyone EXCEPT end users. Every single instance of an ISP complaining about users that I've ever seen has been crap to avoid paying for more bandwidth because they've so over sold that people are noticing and they aren't coming anywhere near what they claim to offer.
If I buy 5 mb/s from you, you god damn give me 5mb/s. You don't traffic shape it. You give me my fucking bandwidth because I paid for it. You do not pick what gets 5mb and what doesn't, and that is EXACTLY what Verizon wants to do. They want to charge me for my pipe to the Internet, and then charge everyone on the Internet AGAIN to put the data on my which you sold me as access to the Internet.
Its called double dipping, and you can take your opinion and shove it up your greedy ass. I buy 5mb, you can limit my total bandwidth to 5mb, full stop. You have no other right to manage my connection. You have no right to even look at my packets for any purpose other than getting them to their destination. Keep your greedy fucking paws off my payload.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
really all large organizations are enemies of individual freedom
the ability to communicate is too important to be owned by anyone
the only long-term solution is wireless mesh networking with each individual setting up nodes based on their ability and interest
I know exactly how much bandwidth I use.
As someone who has worked in the industry.
You know not of which you speak.
Netflix has been paying for content delivery, directly or indirectly for years.
I agree the ploy is stupid. Another small bomb in a much larger battle.
Comments have mentioned ala carte. Ever wonder why that died an ignominious death?
As for the author of the title of this bit, of course he hates the rules. but that's not what the title article is about.
One of the arguments that the ISP are making is that they are *more* than a provider, but actually a type of "editor".
"..The company [Verizon] claims that requiring it to treat all traffic equally violates the First and Fifth Amendments. The Fifth Amendment, it says, protects against having to give other companies a "permanent easement" on its network, claiming a kind of unfair digital eminent domain. And it argues that the First Amendment says the FCC can’t force it to distribute others’ "speech" (like video or calling services) without the chance to decide how it’s transmitted...."
Though I suspect that once liability is contributed to the "editor" they would argue "Hey..don't look at me...I'm just a provider...."
-CF
I have a bit of difficulty following this issue, because our ISP's invariably try to sell their customer for an internet plan where you get a connections speed and data allowance. There are some variations in the limitations, for instance some ISP's charge for excess data, most shape, or throttle the speed to 64k/64k or 256k/64k, some count upload data, some don't. Where they're all consistent is that you are paying for an internet connection and you get that service without any problems regarding what you use your data on.
I'm not sure how the ISP's feel that they should be panelising their customers. I also don't know whether our local ISP's shape certain sites, youtube for one doesn't work brilliantly for me all the time, but reading comments that these content providers, which also aren't generally available here, but surely rather than charging for specific usage, wouldn't it be better to change the service so that it reflects the changes in usage patterns? If the content providers are abusing the network, basically make the customer accountable for that use, after all they are using it.
One thing I have noticed with the telecommunications industry, more broadly is that placing limits on their customers appears to be an anathema; they always want to put the customer in a situation where you could go over and be charged excess usage fees. Bill shock has been a problem here, particularly with international roaming and the extortionate fees Telco's have been charging.
The user is not paying us for the bandwidth or duty cycle to run a server. The content provider is hoping that we won't notice and that it can effectively become an unauthorized, non-paying user of our network resources. Google has had P2P built into the Flash player for use by YouTube, incidentally.
ISPs have no problems with their business models. It's Google who has a problem with their business models... if there's a penny left on the table that Google (which is the force behind the regulations) can't grab. Or if ISPs, who build the Internet, actually get to make something for their hard work.
The user's service did not include permission to operate a server.
... AOL 2.0
[The Universe] has gone offline.
At least one ISP is also a content provider: Comcast...
I *heart* you gclef. Clear, concise, unequivocal, market-oriented. Very well said. Thank you!
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
It's MY bandwidth!!! I bought it from them with my money! It is mine to waste how I want, as long as I comply with the laws and TOS. Bandwidth is not returned like a leased car, so you cannot say I'm merely leasing it. The lines, hardware and other equipment may be leased, but once the month is over, the bandwidth allocated for my use is gone whether I used it or not. Any purposful attempt to take away my bandwidth to the full Internet will be considered theft by me.
Pretty much sums it up: http://i.imgur.com/5RrWm.png
If Verizon decides they want to put a limit on how much can be used on their pipes then let them. It's only a matter of time before Google Fiber sets up shop in Verizon's backyard and eats their lunch.
Seriously.
As an end-user, paying for service from a carrier/ISP/etc, *I* initiate the traffic request. This is what *I* am paying them for. Fulfilling that request.
If I don't make the request, they carry nothing.
If I make a request and they DON'T fulfill it, because they've been trying to squeeze the site purveyor for "a little something to wet their beak", then I stop giving them my money and go to someone (WITH A FUCKING FUNCTIONAL BRAIN) who WILL.
This is the greedy cock-mongers trying to double dip.
There's absolutely NO point to a completely balkanized Internet where traffic gets routed inconsistently based on who's payola-ing whom.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
A dose of reality regarding public companies:
Google's sole responsibility is to their shareholders and it is to maximize profit. Which, as with any public corporation, includes outsmarting competitors and bending the law until just before it breaks.
That last part is not conspiracy theory; even the Supreme Court agrees. They gave it their blessing when they deemed corps to have personhood. Which allows corporations to purchase unlimited influence with politicians. They would be remiss in their duties to their shareholders if they didn't take advantage of it.
So if the ISPs can't make a gross profit then they'll go out of business, and a more nimble business model will spring up in its place. Perhaps it will even be Google itself.
Sorry, it's not puppies and ponies. It's the raw brutality of American capitalism and gets put into practice every day.
And buy Verizon and give it away free.
You: ISPs don't already limit or charge users for their upload bandwidth.
We: Liar, liar, pants on fire!
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
How's this different to the current monetization of the internet? I pay to download so many packets per month. I'm sure FaceBook and Twitter also pay to receive packets. Many ISP services already count download and upload packets towards the monthly allowance. If tel-cos start charging FaceBook and Twitter to push adverts, those tel-cos will very quickly be competing against FaceBook & telephone or Twitter & telephone carriers.
And the upstream bits that originate with an application arbitrarily called a "server" are somehow magickally different from the upstream bits that originate from an application arbitrarily called a "client". That's it!
Except that they aren't.
The only proper, civil response to such blatant and utterly transparent intellectual dishonesty as yours is, "Go die in a fire."
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
There ought to be other choices, but it's becoming that the only choices the corporations will allow are their complete mastery over the human race, or their destruction.
Look, I pay for a class of service (5Mbit down, 640Kbit up.) Deliver that level of service. Period.
Your "throttling" attempts and "bandwidth caps" are nothing more than trying to steal back what I've already paid for.
No. If you buy an Internet connection that is sold as "5Mbps down, 640Kbps up maximum with 60GB/month cap" then that's what you pay for - the ISP is well within their rights to throttle down your connection (or even disconnect you entirely) after you've hit the 60GB cap, since that's what you agreed to.
The issue is ISPs selling "5Mbps down/ 640Kbps up, unlimited" services and then imposing a "fair usage" cap - the contract says "unlimited", so it should damned well be unlimited. Unfortunately, in the UK at least, the advertising standards association ruled, many years ago, that the term "unlimited" didn't actually have to mean unlimited. This is a problem, partly because the public expect "unlimited" to mean exactly that, and partly because the "fair usage" caps vary wildly between ISPs - for example, Orange's GPRS "fair usage cap" used to be 10MB/month, at the same time as 3G MNOs were offering caps in the 1-5GB/month region and most ADSL connections came with caps somewhere in the 30-200GB/month region; Basically, if ISPs are allowed to use the term "unlimited" for connections that aren't unlimited then the customer has no way to know what they are actually buying.
My personal opinion is that "unlimited" connections are pretty much unfeasable at the usual price-points - home internet connections are made cheap and fast by having a burst rate far in excess of what the network could sustain as a continuous rate from all customers at the same time. For example, FTTC tops out at a burst rate of 80Mbps - building out a network that can cope with all the customers hammering it at 80Mbps at the same time would massively push the prices up. I (who uses about 20GB/month) am not interested in the price of my internet connection increasing to subsidise the cost of handling the customers who leave bittorrent going 24/7 - if they want masses of bandwidth, they can pay for it themselves. So IMHO there *should* be some kind of data cap that is set based on how much you're willing to pay.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
I had the same idea a couple months ago. Imagine a city with around 300,000. Redbox and other media is popular and available. we go out and say, here is a device that will connect you others in the community who have content that you might like. We has this device that ill make it possible to connect to others in the area and download or stream their content. All you have to do it plug this device into the wall. those with internet connections can CHOOSE to share their existing internet connection. That would reduce their purchase price as long as they provide bandwidth. pay some people to set up. in uncovered areas of the community and we have a local intranet.
Brave new world my ass.
Net neutrality is good, but it is true that when ISPs see that most of their traffic comes from a few players (Youtube, Netflix, etc.), they get cranky because the accountants see that big chunks of money have to be paid in exchange for that bandwidth.
In the early days of the internet, when it was decentralized, no single actor would be responsible for 40% of bandwidth, so ISPs created peering agreements where as long as in/out traffic ratio is close to 1, they wouldn't have to pay each other.
Nowadays there are a few actors that account for 40% bandwidth of the internet (video streaming), so it means that most ISPs "import" more packets than they "export", and hence, they probably have to pay to the other side. Since the other side has become so big that they may have become their own ISP (Google has probably reached that point), then it could happen that Youtube could be getting paid twice, first by the bandwidth it is delivering, and second by the ads it serves as well.
(ads which by the way cost you money, because if you are on a mobile connection, every byte counts!)
If there was no defacto monopoly like Youtube/Netflix, and that there were many video streaming providers with equal market share and were spread evenly among ISPs, then the ISPs exchanges wouldn't see big imbalances of "import"/"export" and the accountants wouldn't see "hot spots" on their peering bill.
The problem is that the billing/peering system is outdated (it assumes decentralised internet, but the fact is that some web sites are sucking most of the available bandwidth), a billing system like the post office uses (sender pays by weight) would be better. The post office does not discriminate by sender, nor receiver, nor content, only cares about weight.
Vote with your wallets people.
Most people don't know what this is about... most don't understand how the internet works now...
If ISPs tells them this will be better, why shouldn't they believe them...
In a world as complex as today, only a few things can be solved by wallet voting...
Please don't hold me accountable for human right, animal welfare, workers rights, net neutrality, global warming, etc. whenever I use my credit card.
There's no way I can possibly choose the politically correct product every time, it's a lost cause...
..or a bit of both ;)
If we go this route it will eventually create a new internet. The new internet will eventually become completely decentralized using P2P technologies like ZeeBee.
The NSA thinks it has trouble finding terrorist now. What will it do when every laptop, cellphone, tablet, and refrigerator becomes an independent node on this network? No one company will control it. You'll have trillions of nodes with data bouncing around. Tracking will become a whole new nightmare and they can thank companies like Verizon.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
No. They're trying to charge content producers for using their network and end up with control over access, which will let them choke off that control, bundle the web, and charge on both sides of the equation - for the ability to push content, and for the ability to pull content.
The web currently doesn't allow a monopoly on content and on bandwidth, it's completely open, it's not a fucking bundle, and I can't rightly understand the confusion of ideas which could lead you to ask this question. You pay for access to the network, not for any specific bundles of information, how is that anything like cable, and how the hell do you think this has anything to do with offering the web a la carte.
Providers like Verizon should remain a dumb pipe, no matter how much they try to control the network. If they want control, it's certainly not so that they can offer you the web 'a la carte', it's so that they can impose control.
My accountant says he needs to charge my business's customers too since he keeps track of both debits AND credits for me. Seems legit.
Well that is simple then. Identify the users violating the agreement you have with and enforce that agreement.
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
Total BS. As the operator of an ISP (and a former columnist for InfoWorld who was dismissed because I didn't go along with Microsoft's monopoly propaganda... not much different from monopolist Google's fearmongering above), I can say with authority that no ISP wants to limit what sites users can visit.
and later
The user is not paying us for the bandwidth or duty cycle to run a server.
so technically, you're not even lying: good trolling!
They'll get this ruling in their favour eventually. Remember 4 years ago when they blocked the whole of usenet in order to Save The Children from kiddie porn? That was basically the same stunt.
soylentnews.org
Where did I give the impression that content providers aren't paying for bandwidth?
The way this should be working is that end users and content providers buy bandwidth from their ISPs and then the ISPs negotiate contracts over how to peer. If peering arrangements are titled towards one side or the other then maybe one side will end up paying for the peering. However, in many cases the peerage is mutually beneficial and they simply share the costs in supporting the peerage.
Your business shouldn't care if the user is running a server or just a client. You should be charging based on transit alone. Sure servers use more outbound transit and clients use more inbound transit. But you're free to price inbound and outbound traffic differently if they have different costs. The Internet wasn't built around the idea that some machines would have some special attribute that allowed them to serve traffic and everyone else was just a client. Any attempt to apply that to the Internet will ultimately fail. ISPs have been able to get away with this thinking because most of the popular protocols were client/server. Welcome to the 21st century. There are legitimate reasons to operate distributed services. For instance it makes sense to have voice chat applications that don't use a central server.
As far as P2P for YouTube. I don't think you know what you're talking about. The only thing I can find about P2P with YouTube is some Singapore company that tried to enable that and Google didn't like it. Given that Google is pushing for browser standards that don't require Flash at all you'd think they'd also be pushing for these standards to include P2P components. But as far as I can tell they aren't doing that either. Flash does support a P2P feature called RTMFP (Real Time Media Flow Protocol) which is primarily made for collaboration applications. As far as I can tell Google isn't using this even for things like Google Hangouts. If you have some proof otherwise I'd sure like to see the source.
At least one ISP is also a content provider: Comcast...
Which really should be illegal.
To those nimrods, lowbrows and paid-liars who have been casting epithets at the rest of us, proclaiming everything to be just so much "conspiracy theory" --- well all those detractors, assuming any sanity, must now view such a factual; it ain't no conspiracy when it becomes FACT!
To anyone truly interested in understanding what is now taking place, these five books would be most salient to such comprehension (i.e., you'll be a genius on reality after reading them): The Invention of Capitalism, by Michael Perelman
The Surplus American, by Charles Derber and Yale Magrass
Wealth, Power and the Crisis in Laissez Faire Capitalism, by Donald Gibson
Battling Wall Street: the Kennedy presidency, by Donald Gibson
Rockefellerocracy: Kennedy Assassinations, Watergate and Monopoly of the Philanthrophic Foundations, by Richard James Desocio
[P.S. Guess who the majority owner of Verizon is?]
Seriously, if they want to exercise 'editorial discretion' on their networks, I say give'em a trial run of 3 months. Let them charge extra for whatever they want, they own the lines right?
Of course, they'd have to give up common carrier status to do so. A newspaper is legally responsible for everything it prints in its publication, so the various ISPs would similarly be held responsible for what passes on their networks: every bit of libel, every bit of illegal activity, every bit of child pornography would be their responsibility.
I'm willing to bet we could lock up several levels of management for various crimes before whomever was left started crying for common carrier status again.
Ok, People! It's time to start our own internet, with hookers and blackjack.
...Until Google changes course and says "hey, we *could* make a lot of money charging for this too!"
I fear that if Verizon wins this round, every upstream provider will jump on the bandwagon, and all us US end users will basically be screwed.
My ISP (Charter) has this problem.
Actual conversation:
"You have a 250GB/mo usage cap."
"Okay, so how do I monitor my usage?"
"Someone will contact you if you go over."
"So how do I prevent myself from going over? Is there something on my account statement that shows my usage?"
"No."
"Are there any tools you recommend for monitoring my usage?"
"Uh...No. We're evaluating some."
"Can I talk to someone in the network support area who can at least tell me what they see so I can compare it against my own monitoring?"
"Um...no...uh...wait your own monitoring?"
"I have traffic monitoring tools on my router."
"Those aren't supported."
"So? I'm not asking you to support them."
"Um...well, I...our policy is to have someone from the operations center notify you when you've exceeded your bandwidth and your service is halted."
"That's not very usef...wait, halted?"
"Yes. When you exceed your cap, your service is blocked until the next billing cycle begins. A support representative can provide you with tips on how to reduce your usage. Or you can upgrade to our [top of the line service package that costs $150/mo more]."
"So...wait, you'll cut me off if I exceed a cap that you're not allowing me to see if I'm near? How is that fair?"
"Huh. I never thought of it that way. I guess it's not, really."
"..."
"Is there anything else I can help you with today?"
Sadly, this is the ISP I switched *to* after the other local high-speed provider proved so incompetent that they left me without service for two weeks, and after restoration gave me almost dialup-class performance for high-speed prices.
Pfeh. Buncha crooks.
Verizon owns the fiber so they can do whatever they want with it. If you don't like it, don't use Verizon.
Hellloooo Anonymouse
IANAL, but if they do this, will not they lose their "common carrier" status and thus make themselves liable for every packet that traverses their networks? If they miss 1 packet of a kiddie porn file will the FBI send a SWAT team to take down the executive lunch room and frog-march the hand-cuffed CEO into Federal Court?
If I am not mistaken, I think Verizon's plan is to control how much bandwidth each web site can have based on how much the site's owner is willing to pay for the size of the pipe. As users of the Internet, you should be able to use as much bandwidth as the contract with your ISP allows -- I don't think that part will change. However, when it comes to online retail traffic this would tilt the playing field in favor of the big guns -- just like in the brick-and-mortar retail world. This is obviously a hot issue. I believe net neutrality succeeds only as long as bandwidth appears to be unlimited. Ten to fifteen years ago there was an extreme overabundance of bandwidth and it was very hard to argue against net neutrality. I am not sure that's true anymore.
So what would Verizon do if say...Google refused to accept incoming connections from them? No more gmail, Google Apps or any of their numerous APIs. Then M$ follows suit, no more Windows Updates. Next Apple, no more iTunes, and possibly no more iPhone for Verizon subscribers. Then shared hosting providers like GoDaddy refuse service, or financial institutions like BofA... I could go on, but I'm sure you get the point. It would just be a bad business model for any carrier. The result? Hello Google Fiber nationwide and tons of others like it spring up. Lastly (and most amusing), good luck billing trojans and botnets.
We can't let them ruin the web. Can't let 'em do it.
Not when they are given government permission to be a monopoly provider in area, nor when they are given common carrier status. They've been given exclusive rights in various areas by the government -- now they want to abuse those rights to make more money.
That needs to be viewed as an attempted at theft.
Pay to watch adverts? Are you fucking joking?
Everything you've stated is true, but typically the ISP does not show the cap in the advertising and just compares everything in regards to upload and download bandwidth.
If Verizon is the only carrier with reliable data coverage in one's area
This is Verizon Telecom (eg FiOS) not Verizon Wireless.
Same diff. In the wired market, the other carrier is cable. There are places that can get service from Verizon but are unserved by cable.
But they don't advertise the cap, do they? And a cap that can be consumed in 1-2 days of moderate usage is a fraudulent advertisement when you claim multiple megabits of capacity.
Not that my ISP has caps. Nor that I'd ever sign on with an ISP that has them.
But that's because I'm not interested in getting conned.
Now if the ISPs were to advertise something like "260GB per month at up to 5mbit speed", then they'd be producing fair ads. Ditto if they sold different cap tiering levels and bundles without requiring you to pony up for a higher speed to get a higher cap.
But they don't. They just rip people off.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
But they don't advertise the cap, do they?
It depends on your ISP. As I said, iff they are advertising the cap, instead of saying "unlimited" then I see no problem. And indeed, this is what _most_ of the ISPs do here in the UK (certainly the smaller ISPs pretty much never say "unlimited" and advertise a cap.) Some of the ISPs that fall into the "big, cheap and crap" category do still sell dirt cheap "unlimited" accounts with hidden caps, but this is increasingly uncommon.
And a cap that can be consumed in 1-2 days of moderate usage is a fraudulent advertisement when you claim multiple megabits of capacity.
No, no it isn't. If the advertisement says "unlimited" then I would agree that capping it is fraudulent (unfortunately the ASA disagrees on this point); but my ISP says "up to 24Mbps capped at 15GB/month during peak hours" (and defines those "peak hours"), and there is nothing fraudulent about that: I'm absolutely happy with that advertising because I bought the account knowing full well what the cap was and how much it would cost me to increase the cap if necessary. This is good for me - I'm not a heavy downloader, I don't use more than 15GB/month during those peak hours, I don't want to be subsidising the people who thing that they have some kind of a god given right to max out their connection 24 hours a day.
Not that my ISP has caps. Nor that I'd ever sign on with an ISP that has them.
But that's because I'm not interested in getting conned.
I don't see how you can claim an ISP capping people at the advertised limit a "con" - if you can't read the terms of the contract you're signing then that's your own stupid fault, not an attempt to con you. Now, if the ISP is genuinely misadvertising and not explaining the caps in their literature, then that would be a con, but since you said you'd never sign on with an ISP that had caps, you presumably mean you'd know about them _before_ signing, so no, it wouldn't be a con.
Now if the ISPs were to advertise something like "260GB per month at up to 5mbit speed", then they'd be producing fair ads. Ditto if they sold different cap tiering levels and bundles without requiring you to pony up for a higher speed to get a higher cap.
Oh look, that's exactly what they do.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Everything you've stated is true, but typically the ISP does not show the cap in the advertising and just compares everything in regards to upload and download bandwidth.
Not in the UK - most of the ISPs have the cap in the headline advertising.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
The only person who is talking about servers on user accounts is you.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......