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How 'Fast Lanes' Will Change the Internet
An anonymous reader writes "Net neutrality has been looking pretty shaky in recent months. Netflix has started paying Comcast and Verizon directly and the FCC is saying that's perfectly fine. We may be witnessing a fundamental change in the nature of the internet. Timothy B. Lee at Vox explains how all of this works, and what it means for the future of the web. Quoting: '[S]ome of the largest ISPs now seem to view declining network performance not as a technical problem to be solved so much as a source of leverage in business negotiations. Another reason is that regulating interconnection is much more complex than a "classic" network neutrality rule. When all of an ISP's traffic comes through one cable, it's not too hard to write a rule requiring that the packets in that cable be treated equally. But it's harder to write a rule governing when and how ISPs must interconnect. Someone needs to pay for the cost of these connections, and the fairest way to split the costs depends on many subtle factors, including geography, traffic patterns, and the relative size of the interconnecting networks. A poorly written interconnection rule could create a lot of work for lawyers without actually preventing abusive practices.'"
Provider pays to provide information, customer pays ISP for access to internet and then has to pay a per view fee to view content at reasonable speeds. So long as there's money to be extracted, the consumer will be squeezed.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Break up the big providers to ensure meaningful competition. The end consumers wouldn't tolerate ISP's that deliberately provide crappy service if they weren't forced to because most areas only have one broadband provider.
"A poorly written interconnection rule could create a lot of work for lawyers without actually preventing abusive practices" Like they care... if it generates profits (and it will or will appear it will) they will do it... this is not about best use of technology or even fighting piracy or reducing latency... this is just about money and control.
http://www.quasarcr.com/
Whatever happens it will be constructed so that lawyers get their danegeld. And a non-trivial amount.
Every carriage agreement will require verifiable traffic levels and performance all of this will have to have minutly agreed upon measurement processes.
The whole notion is very B-Ark worthy. And will result in a lot of work for the providers.
Someone actually pointed out something I've been saying for a while. My point was that traffic shaping rules don't make any sense if an ISP peers with preferred providers of services. Say they want to provide quality VoIP. They don't need to shape competitors packets, they just need to keep their VoIP traffic off congested links. Duh! Net neutrality rules wouldn't have covered peering.
So now the government is talking about regulating peering. I feared this would happen once someone woke up to how the Internet actually works. I really don't see how any good can come of this. As I've stated previously, there was an article YEARS ago that pointed out that Yahoo! only paid for half of their bandwidth requirements. They had their own national network that they would deliver content directly to ISP's. It was a win-win because the traffic would stay off the transit links of both Yahoo! and the ISP's. They were connecting content to eyeballs. It wasn't traditional settlement-free peering, but it was a good thing. Nothing wrong with it. Peering is good. Why should the government get involved with this?
As far as Netflix is concerned, they painted themselves into a corner. They used a CDN (Cogent) that had settlement-free peering with many networks. Once Netflix started sending their traffic over those links it broke the settlement-free agreement. Netflix might have been in a better position if they didn't use a CDN and all their traffic went over transit. Then make agreements directly with the large ISP's that didn't involve existing peering ports.
I would expect Lawrence Lessig's MAYDAY SuperPAC could solve this.
As far as I can see, it aims to set up congressmen who will take money out of governing, and I bet it will also wipe out FCC corruption and reset pointers to net neutrality as a consequence of where I expect it will go.
https://mayone.us/
http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/...
as long as the "slow" lane is "fast enough".
That's the problem - they are not creating any "fast lanes". They are artificially creating slow lanes to get more money. It's like if the state put down continuous rumble strips on all right hand lanes, and charged you extra for the privilege of driving in the left hand lane.
More regulations will just end up causing more exploitable loopholes. If someone will eat their lunch if they provide crappy service, they'll fix things sharpish.
And then you create ultrafast lanes!
It's also important to keep the pressure on via the official channels, even if we're skeptical whether it will work. Documenting public sentiment and the government's consideration (or lack thereof) is a critical step on the path to better government. Please sign the net neutrality petition and reply to the FCC request for comments, and promote them on your favorite social networks.
The petition is almost up to half the needed signatures in about one week, but the signature rate has been slowing down with the weekend approaching as peoples thoughts turn to beer and barbecue. Please help give it a boost, and/or light it up again Monday or Tuesday, to keep the momentum going during the more active weekdays.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
As long as the "slow lane" still allows me my full bandwidth, I see no issues. The only difference is latency, but closeness to reduce latency comes at a price of the party that needs it. A game server may be willing to pay a premium to be closer and have fewer hops, but Netflix may not care about latency as long as their bandwidth is unfettered.
If the "slow lane" starts affecting my bandwidth, then the ISP is not holding up their end of the bargin. They must provide me uncongested access to all of their interconnects. Once the packet leaves my ISP's network, my ISP has no more control and therefore, cannot be directly responsible anymore. Although, they could be indirectly responsible, like making sure they use a quality transit provider or not using overloaded peers to get cheaper routes.
the problem is, they won't be selling the fast lanes to consumers, they'll be selling them to providers. like netflix and youtube. so prices will continue to go up for services, and the consumers (us) won't connect the dots.
I'm shocked... large ISPs (e.g. Comcast) would never deliberately load links to point of saturation in a bid to leverage access to millions of captive eyeballs.
In all seriousness TFA misses the larger point. It is impossible and foolish to even try and legislatively correct distortions arising from provider and content monopolies. The only viable solution is to deny monopoly status and break up large providers into little byte sized bits.
If only you are able to keep everyone from getting too fat then the problem solves itself as normal market forces keep the BS in check.
Call me the neckbeard prime but traffic shaping doesnt bother me much as its based on the notion that internet = future of infotainment.
movies: check them out, free, from my local library these days. And much better quality too (you get more independent films with better plot and writing than the crap hollyoaks delivers.)
music: If i like a song and can support the artist, Ill buy it from their site. I dont scrape along with a jolly roger screwing over every artist I see. Again, the library is your friend for some stuff.
e-books: never bought into this racket. Ill check it out from the library, read it at my own leisure, and not worry about the risk that my rented copy will be reposessed wirelessly without notice. Books i enjoy will be bought used from the local bookstore.
I use IRC, and my firefox is so incapable of showing advertisements its like a time machine to 1989. Hell, my hosts file wont even route most of it.
Also from most of the slashdot community: fuck your social networks.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Provider pays to provide information, customer pays ISP for access to internet and then has to pay a per view fee to view content at reasonable speeds. So long as there's money to be extracted, the consumer will be squeezed.
This buys into the framing of the argument pushed by the ISPs. The content providers were already paying for their own connection to the internet. Now if content providers want to provide fast connections to their customers, then they not only have to pay their own ISP, but they also need to send money to every other ISP in the world. This fundamentally changes the structure of the market.
And you, as a customer, get a crappy connection to the internet unless the content providers pay. That's true regardless of what you pay your ISP for their advertised bandwidth.
If this goes too far, customers will eventually start suing their ISPs for false advertising. ISP customers are paying for a certain amount of bandwidth, not a certain amount of bandwidth IF the content providers also pay.
>Netflix has started paying Comcast and Verizon directly and the FCC is saying that's perfectly fine.
Yes, it's completely fine that Netflix now pays Comcast for direct access to their network, rather than continuing to pay Cogent for transit when Cogent couldn't handle the traffic.
Of course if you only read about this on the perpetually outraged SlashDot, you might have been seriously misled regarding the situation. I know I was.
The ISPs aren't creating "slow lanes." They're simply refusing to widen the freeway until they're paid to do so.
Funny. Customers pay their ISPs for an advertised bandwidth. Content providers also pay ISPs for advertised bandwidth. Yet, ISPs are still able to turn up the speed if content providers pay them extra. It sounds like ISPs are purposefully not living up to their advertising in order to extort money from people who aren't their customers.
They must provide me uncongested access to all of their interconnects.
No they don't. It all depends on your contract. If you have residential internet service they are under no obligation to provide you any service at all. Granted you could dump their service if it were bad enough. If you want guaranteed uncongested access to all their interconnects you'd need that stated in your contract. Those are generally considered "Business lines" and are your classic T1s, T3s, etc... and even those can have issues. But you have your contract to back you up should you have a problem.
Break up the big providers to ensure meaningful competition. The end consumers wouldn't tolerate ISP's that deliberately provide crappy service if they weren't forced to because most areas only have one broadband provider.
That's not a solution. That's like mowing the lawn; they'd just come back.
Proof: they started out small. That didn't stop things from getting where they are now.
The solution is change the rules of their business. How? By getting the FCC to regulate them as Title II Common Carriers, as they should have in the first place. Then almost all of these problems simply disappear overnight.
Common Carriers are not allowed to discriminate based on content (in fact -- wonder of wonders -- they are not even allowed to access that content to tell what it is). They are forced to charge a fair price while making a "reasonable" profit. Etc.
It's a far better situation all the way around.
Do that FIRST. Then worry about whether they need to be broken up, which doesn't address the main problem.
the slow lanes are a made up of a small minority of people who cut out cable TV and demand netflix to be crystal clear
most cable companies can't even send regular TV in full HD on every channel. even in NYC full HD is only on a few channels. some supposedly HD channels look worse than SD
most people like me don't care. cartoons look fine on netflix and that's good enough for me.
i'll take the current cheap service over a more expensive guaranteed speed that a minority demand. ISP's need to make a higher paid tier since only business accounts get guaranteed speed. the people ranting about this on the internet want the same thing as current cable TV super bundles instead in a different form. they want someone else to pay for their top tier service
I'm pretty sure I said jack and shit about Netflix, instant upgrades, or any of the rest of your rant. Don't take my word for it, please actually read what I wrote and then get back to me when your reading comprehension is greater than your ability to punctuate and capitalize sentences correctly. Argumentum ad hominem notwithstanding.
Also, this is not because some "whiny cord cutters are now ranting mad." This is because some very wealthy corporations have bought some nice shiny congressmen and other government officials and are now trying to triple dip into the internet money stream. I proposed a way to stop that practice and, at the same time, provide greater competition which should also provide better prices for the consumers. You know, save money for those of us who don't own mega-wealthy multi-national corporations.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
If I wanted the same thing that cable TV provides, I'd buy cable TV. But this isn't about Netflix - they are just the first since they use so much bandwidth. Rather, it's about who gets to decide what is delivered to your computer at what speed. Today the argument is over Netflix. But tomorrow it could be CNN. Or Slashdot. Or YouTube. Or Facebook. It's bad for consumers because it will cost you more for the services you like and use and it discourages competition (just wait and see what "doesn't work" when Comcast decides they want to start a streaming video service).