Slashdot Mirror
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts Opens Mouth, Inserts Foot
lpress (707742) writes "At a recent conference, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts rationalized charging Netflix to deliver content by comparing Comcast to the Post Office, saying that Netflix pays to mail DVDs to its customers but now expects to be able to deliver the same content over the internet for free. He forgot to mention that the Post Office does not charge recipients for those DVDs. The underlying issue in this debate is who will invest in the Internet infrastructure that we badly need? Comcast has a disincentive to invest because, if things bog down, people will blame content providers like Netflix and the ISP will be able to charge the content provider for adequate service. If ISPs have insufficient incentive to invest in infrastructure, who will? Google? Telephone companies? Government (at all levels)? Premises owners?"
That everyone has to pay for access to the Internet, including Netflix. They've already paid, but Comcast arbitrarily expects them to pay even more just because their own customers want to use Netflix, which makes zero fucking sense.
This may be an absurd suggestion, but given that internet access is somewhat required to participate in society today, perhaps it's time to class internet access as a utility like water and electricity/gas.
Never happened. True story.
Just like water and power, internet needs regulation on a governmental level; a service utility provided at a fixed wholesale cost which the government
takes its share to maintain a standard contention ratio that ISPs can retail their services on top of.
Connectivity should not be left in the hands of corporations with shareholders to please.
Yeah, that's fucking brilliant. Let's package Netflix along with 105 other online services we'll never use, all for only $125 a month.
Moron.
We need backbone resources or other tricks...
Mostly we need legal legislative backbone.
The last mile is owned by local monopolies.
That is the sad reality. These local monopolies are
also content service providers and do what they to
do feather their own nest.
The congestion is the backbone owners and providers.
Multiple issues dominate the congestion problems.
Access, distance, hops and hubs.
The likes of Netflix need to embrace one or more
flavors of p2p networking. A local neighborhood
can cache and redeliver most video frames from a
modest cache with modern crypto tools to contain
theft of service.
I think the likes of Netflix would do well do develop
an enhanced DOCSIS 3.x modem that also contains
a p2p client/service that can recast content to other
like service devices a hop or two away. It can also
begin caching the top two products on a wish list.
Proxy and p2p services are underused or vastly abused.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yup. The customers pay for downloading from their ISP to their home. Netflix pays for streaming from their CDNs to their provider(s). What happens in between is the problem of the ISPs.
Comcast wants BOTH the customer AND netflix to pay for the download part. Thats where it gets messed up.
I want to send a letter to someone in a different country, say, the USA, or England, I pay Canada Post to deliver it. I do not have to pay the United States Postal Service or Royal Mail to deliver my letter sent from Canada.
Postal settlements for delivery abroad are made peer-to-peer.
The Universal Postal Union (UPU, French: Union postale universelle) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates postal policies among member nations.
In 1969, the UPU introduced a new system of payment where fees were payable between countries according to the difference in the total weight of mail between them. These fees were called terminal dues. Ultimately, this new system was fairer when traffic was heavier in one direction than the other. As a matter of example, in 2012, terminal dues for transit from China to the USA was 0.635 SDR/kg, or about 1 USD/kg.
As this affected the cost of the delivery of periodicals, the UPU devised a new ''threshold'' system, which it later implemented in 1991. The system sets separate letter and periodical rates for countries which receive at least 150 tonnes of mail annually. For countries with less mail, the original flat rate is still maintained. The United States has negotiated a separate terminal dues formula with thirteen European countries that includes a rate per piece plus a rate per kilogram; it has a similar arrangement with Canada.
Universal Postal Union
My Comcast bill is $57.99 for 10Mbps internet only. I just got a couple of "threat" letters saying that my "promotional" pricing is about to expire and I will pay even more for their lovely service. Never mind that my promotional pricing actually ended six months ago.
They are already making money hand over fist off their customers. They should use that money to invest in their own infrastructure improvements.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
The ability to run a server is an overlooked part of net neutrality. The debate now is motivated by content providers who only care about downstream parity with other providers â" but real neutrality would also allow consumers to run their own servers including mail and web servers. That would open up markets for plug servers and turn the privacy debate on its ear. In the long run, it might even prove more important than content provider equality.
It seems obvious to me that pipe owner has an advantage when it comes to deal with what and how can transit.
This can be solved by (1) regulation, (2) competition, and (3) public ownership of pipes, whether as personal property (in premise), associations, municipality, state or federal level
I see people dismissing first and third solutions because government involvement should be inefficient, but that is just ideology. Public service can be efficient and economically sound. Regulation can work. It just depends how it is done.
That loss is completely due to the pension funding liability congress placed on them in 2006, which will expire in 2016, bringing them back into the black with pensions fully funded for the next 75 years.
The ability to run a server is an overlooked part of net neutrality. The debate now is motivated by content providers who only care about downstream parity with other providers â" but real neutrality would also allow consumers to run their own servers including mail and web servers. That would open up markets for plug servers and turn the privacy debate on its ear. In the long run, it might even prove more important than content provider equality.
Just so. However, I'd go even farther than that. The last mile protocols (DOCSIS, ADSL, etc.) that have been developed mimic the Consumer (download)/Provider (upload) model.
This is a direct assault on free speech and free collaboration across the Internet.
Restricting servers is just another part of the process which limits the promise and potential of the Internet.
When everyone can have reasonable upload speeds, then everyone can host content, everyone can publish their creative output, each of us can share our thoughts and ideas with the world, the big content providers (including MPAA/RIAA, major newsotainment outlets, the eBays and AmazonMarketplaces of the world) will become less relevant, and we will become freer.
I know it's a pipe dream. But a fella can dream, can't he?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
The fact they like to make it sound like they need to invest so badly in bandwidth is BS, only the last mile to the home is so expensive, and with them dropping all analog channel to the home that frees up lots of DOCIS bandwidth going forward so that should help allot. They do need to spend allot of money to drop SDV and go completely digital but they still put that off because they love to rebuild the whole network every couple years on the edge anyway.
But all the backhaul and backbone fiber connections have been getting increasingly cheaper, most routers had a max interface speed of 10Gbit's, but with 100 Gbit interfaces becoming more common, and the fact that all DWDM optical gear are seeing jumps from 10 Gbit per lambda to 100Gbits per lambda by just swapping out some hardware that is not free but still utilize the same physical fiber but basically make it 10X more for a small upgrade cost.
I am convinced they only cry about bandwidth costs because that is what they really sell now, and are afraid that its just going to keep getting cheaper and cheaper, which it is.
If your wanting to run servers, get a "business connection". It's a bit more $, but static IPs, not much RIAA monitoring, nothing blocked...
The Postal Service also doesn't publish a lot of material it mails for itself.
Comcast/Xfinity should be forced to separate from their content creation side. (NBC/Universal)
Netflix should add a surcharge to it's subscribers on Comcast (or any other ISP that decides to put up a toll gate). $.75 - $1.00 a month should do the trick, just let the customer know why they're being charged extra, so they can take the issue up with Comcast.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
If you think that Comcast is not already planning on charging an extra "streaming fee" to the end customer, then you are insane.
Comcast is already drafting up a new shuffling of the tiers to give you a platinum tier that will "make netflix and other video services faster" that is nothing more than paying to disable the throttling.
They will triple dip, all of the executives and board members are having to change their suits 3 times a day because of the sheer amount of drool.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
For some time MBA training has concentrated on offering the least while charging the most. Ethics, social responsibility, even just basic human decency have no ROI, so they've been thrown overboard. The goal is to control a market, then milk it for all it's worth. Part and parcel of that is letting QoS degrade while consistently undercutting your labor force. As the C-whatever, you make your quaterly bonuses, the shareholders are delighted, and the company gradually degrades until it is a mere shell. Of course, you've moved on and the collapsing hulk you left behind is someone else's problem. Then it's time for the government bailout. Welcome to the modern business model.