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AT&T Proposes Net Neutrality Compromise

Posted by Soulskill on from the you-aim-the-gun,-we'll-pull-the-trigger dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The net neutrality debate has been pretty binary: ISPs want the ability to create so-called "fast lanes," and consumers want all traffic to be treated equally. Now, AT&T is proposing an alternative: fast lanes under consumer control. Their idea would "allow individual consumers to ask that some applications, such as Netflix, receive priority treatment over other services, such as e-mail or online video games. That's different from the FCC's current proposal, which tacitly allows Internet providers to charge content companies for priority access to consumers but doesn't give the consumers a choice in the matter."

AT&T said, "Such an approach would preserve the ability of Internet service providers to engage in individualized negotiations with [content companies] for a host of services, while prohibiting the precise practice that has raised 'fast lane' concerns." It's not perfect, but it's probably the first earnest attempt at a compromise we've seen from either side, and it suggests the discussion can move forward without completely rejecting one group's wishes.

12 of 243 comments (clear)

  1. You mean... by i.r.id10t · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You mean just like we can do now assuming our ISP treats all traffic equally? Isn't QoS supported by most home type routers, even without having to flash it with dd-wrt or tomato or whatever?

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    1. Re:You mean... by Jason+Levine · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, but you see this way AT&T can get payments for "fast lane access" while blaming consumers for picking the sites. No heat over "abuse of monopoly/duopoly" and more money. It's a win-win (for AT&T)!

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    2. Re:You mean... by Sockatume · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think the idea is that you pay the ISP for a "Netflix booster", and then your Netflix traffic gets un-humped into the fast lane. Meanwhile everyone else's Netflix is slow, and they're griping at Netflix about why they have to pay this extra fee, and Netflix eventually gives up and pays AT&T to un-hump all of its customers' traffic.

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    3. Re:You mean... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The only reason for having QoS on a network is when there's congestion. If there is congestion on an ISP's network, the ISP is not doing its job, the job that the customers already paid for. You can't sell 50Mbps internet connections if your network can't deliver 50Mbps to the customer (with exceptions only for unusual circumstances, unusual meaning not predictably recurring). ISPs can use statistics to their advantage and underprovision network bandwidth, because not everybody needs full bandwidth at the same time, but whatever bandwidth is regularly used must be available.

      This is AT&T trying to shift blame to the consumer. Your data isn't trickling because the ISP failed to build out the network. It's slow because other consumers wanted their traffic fast-laned. Don't forget that "fast lane" means someone else's data is throttled.

    4. Re:You mean... by Ranbot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think the idea is that you pay the ISP for a "Netflix booster", and then your Netflix traffic gets un-humped into the fast lane.

      That's how I interpretted it... and with this model ISPs could bundle website traffic into packages just like cable TV. No thank you.

    5. Re:You mean... by Sloppy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think the idea is that you pay the ISP for a "Netflix booster", and then your Netflix traffic gets un-humped into the fast lane.

      Is it just me, or does anyone else see the foolishness in one of the highest volume uses of the Internet also being one of the highest priority? That people are thinking of the huge transfers of pre-produced video as being something other than the dead last, lowest priority cheapest-per-byte traffic there is, is totally ridiculous.

      The only things that should be "fast laned" (low latency) are VoIP, videoconferencing, interactive terminals, etc: most of which is either low-bandwidth or else niche. If "high priority" is what many peoples' connections are doing several hours per day, then our very sense of "priorities" is fucked up.

      I can't say I'm a fan of the ISPs that Netflix is fighting with, but at the same time: Fuck Netflix. Netflix is a case study in how to do video technologically wrong and it seems like they're just totally ignoring common sense. Why shouldn't doing things like a luddite, be relatively expensive? (Really, having storage in your box is still considered prohibitively expensive? It sure wasn't expensive in 2000 with Tivo series 1. Things got worse since then?!?) If the pampered princess insists that her cake be delivered from the kitchen a bite at a time and the commoner just puts a whole slice on his plate and takes a bite at the table whenever he wants it, we expect the princess' servants to be rolling their eyes when she's not looking, embezzeling, etc.

      When we have broken up the monopolies and our streets have conduits under them containing a dozen competing fibers, we can re-evaluate the tech from our position of abundance. Maybe video streaming won't be on-the-face-of-it-stupid, then. But that's the future, not today.

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  2. Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How is this a compromise? You hire a thousand people to vote the way you like, net neutrality on their terms. again.

  3. Consumers pay extra by spafbi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I did not RTA, but from the summary it sounds as if AT&T's proposal would allow AT&T to instead charge customers extra based on the applications they wish to use. No, thank you. AT&T, you already charge too much for broadband services which are far below the performance of broadband offered in much of the developed world. Charging consumers even more is an insult to the consumer, and an abuse of your government-granted utility monopolies (at least in may areas of the US).

  4. Approved Lists? by Jason+Levine · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So would AT&T's proposal let you "fast lane" any site? Or just a select group of major sites that AT&T has "approved"?

    AT&T's idea would still allow for commercial deals between companies. But they would have to be arranged as the result of one or more subscriber requests; the ISPs couldn't offer fee-based prioritization just because they wanted to.

    Oh, I see. So it's not really "I want X to be fast-laned" and then it is. It's "I want X to be fast-laned", therefore AT&T might possible approach X and demand fast lane payments. This way AT&T can pass the blame for the fast lane charges to the customers (who will also pay for those charges via increased fees for those sites) and can still pocket the money. Also, they are guaranteed that Netflix and the other Internet video companies would top the lists. Just the sites that they themselves would have targeted for extortion... I mean, fast lane payments.

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  5. This is not a compromise by kruach+aum · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the consumer can call for some content to be provided faster, the beginning state has to be that all traffic is slowed down; you can't go faster than "fastest". If all traffic is slowed down, you're already violating net neutrality. In other words, this proposal assumes a state in which net neutrality advocates have already lost and gotten nothing.

  6. AT&T..compromise? by grasshoppa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    hahahahaha

    No, what we're seeing is one of two things:

    1) They've already figured out how to milk this suggestion for every dime ( and given enough time, they'll figure out how to milk even MORE out of it )

    2) They see which way the wind is (hopefully) blowing, and realize a compromise NOW might let them salvage some of the situation.

    In either case, telling them to go "pound sand" is still the correct response. AT&T and their ilk have screwed over customers for years. There is no reason to suddenly adopt an attitude of cooperation with them, knowing full fucking well the only reason they're doing so is to find a place to stick the knife.

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  7. Even better! by mwvdlee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Old plan:
    1. Make all internet slow lane.
    2. Require content providers to pay for fast lane.

    New plan:
    1. Make all internet slow lane.
    2. Require content providers to pay for fast lane.
    3. Require customers to pay in order to access fast lane.

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