Oops. Yes, that is what I meant.:) megs per second. 95th percentile for the month. While peering is happening more and more as they build their backbones, they still pay a lot for bandwidth.
You can't be serious. Since NO cable companies are transit free, they pay per meg usage to their transit providers. The more you use, the more they have to pay. They either raise your rates or eat the cost of upgrading the network for free. They are a for profit company. DO you think they will just 'eat the cost'? VOIP, IPTV, and anything else requiring bandwidth will cease to function as they did. They can't offer you a QOS service to commit bandwidth to you because of all of the 'network neutrality' nonsense.
Keep thinking bandwidth is free and noone has to pay for it. Just don't be surprised when your 'best effort' service takes a minute to load a web page and your bandwidth sensitive services no longer function.
just because you can break the law easily, does not mean it is allowed. I can't wait until all of the people who access networks illegally are thrown in jail. it should be much quieter around here.
We pay up to $60 per month to have this great thing called broadband, and what do we get?
A best effort burstable connection.
Carriers wanting to restrict VOIP use, throttling Bittorrent traffic, refusing to guarantee any particular level of service, etc
I have only heard of one company blocking competitor's voip, and that was dealt with by the FCC. As far as QoS goes, the service providers would like to offer higher QoS for a fee, which I have no issue with. Unfortunately, some folks are of the opinion that offering a QoS service is a Net Neutrality issue and would like to see legislation passed to prevent service providers from offering such a service.
As a small publisher that generates less than 1k a month on my website, this will change what I have to do to fund my site. My readers are very targetted and only specific ads from a few companies show up on my site. I am better off becoming an affiliate of the advertiser directly than taking a the small percentage I would get from Google. It's going to cost Google money, not me.
You aren't wrong. This hasn't happened. It isn't happening. And it won't happen.
RTFA and you will notice every thing they say is could, may, might, possibly.
It isn't happening. Go to savetheinternet.com and read their multiple examples of this happening. All 4 of them. 2 are in canada and wouldn't be impacted by this law anyway, 1 was AOl and a messed up filter and 1 was a little rinky dink isp that the FCC fined for blocking their competitors VOIP.
The truth is, there are no laws stopping the infrastructure providers from doing this now, yet they aren't doing it. Why would that be? Oh, because it doesn't make business sense? Like it is going to make more sense as more options are available to the consumer?
This is about a broken business model (transit providers charging both sides) and the companies who are trying to not have that business model change. There is a 25% chance that I am your provider right now and i have total control of my network. I would never block or degrade your traffic. I would upgrade your traffic if you paid me. Granted, the Telco's have been known to do some stupid stuff in the past, but here we are trying to write laws to fix a problem that does not exist at the risk of stopping public companies from investing in the Infrastructure that people like to call the Internet.
What will happen if these laws are passed? People will stop peering. No more free traffic, everyone gets charged the same, and everyones costs shoot up so that the people who are building the infrastructure can afford to keep doing so. If the government wants to regulate something, force everyone to peer and stop using 3rd parties to carry their traffic to other networks. In that case the eyeball and the content networks make money (as in make money by spending less) and can afford bigger better pipes.
Enough with the monopoly stuff too. Satellite, telco, cable, and wireless are options for most people. If you don't have that in your area, it's because it is too expensive to build there. I am sure that restricting the money they can make off that infrastructure will encourage more people to get in to that business.
I know, it's all the big bad evil corporations lying about this, right? Which big bad corporations would that be? Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast? Or Ebay, Microsoft, and Google?
It's only a requirement if they offer the service as a 'primary line' service, which is why I said he should ask his provider. Even from the same provider the service will differ between areas.
You appear to be on comcast. You should ask them if the rf plant is backed up also. You could have power in your house all day, but if your node is down.. not going to matter.
Now, don't go confusing the issue with facts. This is Slashdot.
If the people who actually build the infrastructure have to pay a tax on a service they offer, why shoudn't the other people who use that same infrastructure for the same service have to pay? It's about a level playing field.
Go Go Net Neutrality! Treat every service the same no matter who it is provided by is what Slashdot has been preaching, isn't it? Oh, or should that only apply when it does not cost the end users money?
I suppose you can say there is a monopoly at the local level if you are not in an area served by DSL, CABLE, FIOS, SATELLITE, and WIRELESS.
If you are not in a well served area, Net neutrality is not going to change that. These companies wanting to overbuild other providers only want to do it in prime locations. Loudon county will end up with 5 providers but innercity Detroit will still only have 1 or 2 providers.
Just because there is competition does not mean it is free. Someone still has to pay for it. My question was "who?". I guess I must be missing it because I am not sure how what you pointed out has any impact. Can you clarify?
They are providing it, but the cost is going up. This not about not wanting to provide it. This is about wanting to provide it in a way that makes business sense, to everyone.
The problem is the business model of the Internet is broken. The eyeball and content providers are stuck paying some third party for transit and they are raking in their 30 bucks a meg from both ends.
Dont legislate net neutrality. legislate interconnections.
I think right now the fees being paid would cover it all, if they were going to the right people. If google and comcast both have to pay someone else to carry their traffic through one router and neither of them gets a penny, there is something wrong there. The ocntent providers and eyeballs are both getting billed by a 3rd party company when that would all go away if they would just directly interconnect.
Note: Google is peering so this does not really apply to them, I just like typing Google more than Vonage.
What most of these people seem to be missing is that there is a middle man (level3) for instance, that is charging the content and eyeball providers. Raise the rates to google and Level3 makes more money, not your isp. Tos olve this, remove the middle men and directly peer. the Internet isn't pbroken, this really stupid business model is.
Sure. When your local city pays the companies the billions they paid to built it, maybe it will happen.
And then once they own the local access network, who pays the cost of transit and moving that traffic to other networks? or do yout hink your local access network runs all the way to google's front door?
There are so many issues involved here that none of these simple little solutions will work.
You seem to think that the telcos/cable companies have no cost associated with getting content to their netowrk. that isn't the case. As the average amount of bandwidth a customer uses go up (doubled in the last year), so does the costs to the eyeball and content providers with no new revenue.
They nee dto cut out the middle men (transit providers) and directly interconnect. Pretty soon you may find your provider is unwilling to pay to get traffic to Vonage. Regardless of what net neutrality laws are passed, they can not force a provider to pay for traffic from someone they do not want to pay for. Vonage may not want to pay to reach that telco, and they don't have to either. What will happen under this new legislation, if passed, will be a split of the net. the telcos / cable companies will just not pay anyone for transit and you do not connect to their network directly, you can not access it.
While we are on the topic, just how exactly did the private infrastructure of a private company become 'the internet' and what makes anyone think they have the right to tell a private company how to run their network? I'll be over your house tomorrow to install my pr0n server on your lan. Its the internet and it should be free, right? oh.. it doesn't apply to every network? just some? Can anyone point me to the white paper that expalins which networks are 'the internet' and which ones arent?
if AT&T disconnected their backbone from everyone else tomorrow, do they have their very own Internet now? If comcast's access network is the Internet, do they have to provide you access to anything else since they are just selling you internet access? if my backbone is 'The internet' do i get to say i built the internet? If i do, will Gore get mad?
Google does pay a company for transit. generally, the transit companies are also charging the last mile providers. The ocntent providers need to cut out the transit providers and connect directly to the eyeball providers. Both eyeball and content company save money and have a better performing service. Google is alreadying peering with my network, so tey are ont he right track.
the transit providers are sitting back and raking in the money from both ends as the eyeball and content providers fight it out about who is going to pay for the infrastructure expansions.
net neutrality legislation should carry mandatory peering requirements for networks exchanging a certain level of traffic. This solves this issue. of course, the transit providers might get a little miffed not being able to double charge for traffic that they arent the origination or destination of.
just an fyi. In Theory, ATM overhead is 9.6%. In reality, it ends up being closer to 20%. This is one of the main reasons ATM never had much traction past oc12 speeds. Who wants to give up 1/5 of their bandwidth just for overhead? that's 20% of your total available bandwidth that you can't realize revenue on.
Unfortunately, cable is a best effort service. That means the cable company will make the best effort to provide you the bandwidth they say you can have. Of course, to do anything that can ensure you will have that bandwidth available (QOS?), would be illegal under all of these new net neutrality laws.
I am sure if you called up your cable companies transit provider and bought a dedicated t1 from then for 600-2000 bucks a month you would be able to get your promised speeds. Or not. Apparently it will be illegal for them to reserve bandwidth for their customers because they are not reserving it for people who are not paying them.
Excuse me while I go amuse myself by reading some more net neutrality bills.
ISP's that do not have their own peering / backbone have to pay transit costs on a per meg basis. A standard per meg cost may be 30 dollars ( check with your local transit provider for a realistic price for your traffic) per meg at the 95th percentile. If your ISP is paying 30 dollars per meg, should they charge you 33 dollars a meg (10% profit) + hardware and manpower costs?
The internet business model is busted all to hell. Content providers are charged per meg. transit providers charge per meg. End users are charged a flat rate.
In the last year, the average enduser consumption has doubled. This means the ISP's transit costs have doubled with no increase in revenue per customer. The ISP's are trying to find a way to change the business model.
Your view that it needs to change is rare amongst users. How do you think most users would react to a metered service?
I agree with what you said 100%, unfortunately, we appear to be in the minority.
Oh, and there is another solution, for those big enough to use it. Remove the transit providers from the picture. Content providers, once they are exchanging a certain level of traffic with an ISP, should peer (interconnect directly. This elimates costs for content and eyeball providers, increases performance and reliability, totally eliminates another network from the picture that is out of control of the ISP and content provider.
Of course, good luck convincing AT&T to peer with anyone.
Now your thinking so, just lay your own lines, Well you can't. You can connect a few building across the country or town, but the "last mile" (as it is called) needed to deliver it to homes is regulated to the point only existing cable companies and public telcos can lay the lines required. With this lock in on service providers who do benefit from regulations stoping competition, they are going to try and charge you for 3 meg access then turn around and slow down the sites you are going to access to under 3 meg unless they pay some fee. It is actualy more complicated then this but thats the idea.
Actually, wireless is going to be a killer competitor. And satellite is getting faster all of the time. Is 4 competitors (if there is only 1 of each) to your front door too few? That is already spreading the margins too thin for anyone to think it worth it to build in to that area. It really is economics.
What would be nice is if they made the home owner the owner of the last mile. Give them the choice of who to connect it to.
You say cable companies only want to use QoS to clear the trafic up. Well implemented corectly, this will actualy speed the network up. But from what i hear with SBC and other telcos, It is actualy wanted to be used to slow down content providers who don't pay them a ransom fee.
I can only speak for my network. I could not imagine in what world it would make sense to ever detriment traffic on my network. Never. iIwouldn't put it past them telco's though. You should switch everything to cable today;)
The problem isn't making them pay for a service, it is that the service is already payed for when i purchase my service to contact them. Thye pay for thier service to contact me. We both have payed, Why is it going to cost them more money now?/i?
Your contract to me says you will receive a 16meg down 2 meg up (or whatever) best effort service. What I am saying is that I can make your voice and video traffic better than best effort. And honestly, they need it. Just a little congestion can break a stream.
Maybe Vonage would like to sell it to you. Yhey can sell their customers a higher QoS service and pay the isp's to make it a higher QoS. I do not see the problem with this. Take it or leave it. if you want it, great. If you don't great. of course, I could only control traffic on my network so i would prefer if they had a direct interconnect with me.
That said, I can see where this could be abused. If AT&T wanted to degrade the Vonage service on their network, they most certainly could. They could block it all together if they wanted. And the FCC would smakc them with a fine. I don't know how big a fine it would take for AT&T to notice, but I wouldn't mind seeing them feel some pain for their arrogance.
I don't want to get in to the business model of the Internet. The providers have to pay by the bit and sell it at an all you can eat price. Is it any wonder the service providers are concerned whent he average customers bandwidth usage has doubled in the last year?
I am not going to make your service worse. I am not going to charge you more for the same service. But, I'll offer you an upgraded service. If you want it.
I apologize. I was thinking of the PUC funds the Telco's received when I made that statement. But you are correct, cable companies have received assistance / incentives / tax breaks, etc. pretty much what most large corporations get.
As far as a disclaimer goes:
I run the IP network for a cable company. My network has never received a penny from the government to be built. I do find it amusing people like to call my network "The Internet". Me and Al Gore. We built it all, you know?
Can I be both? An idiotic asshole has a certain.. as the French say, I don't know what.
No, but they do get the franchise contracts that lock out competitors.
In case you have missed it, the government is falling all over themselves giving the rbocs the same old breaks they always do. Including statewide franchises.
Honestly, would they spend the money to build in to an area if they had to split it with several competitors? The cost would be prohibitive and these ARE corporations. The infrastructure to deliver broadband to your house would just now be arriving from the telco's.
In an ideal world, the infrastructure companies could afford to build out to the ruralest of areas. We would have 10 or 20 carriers to the front door. But every overbuild has diminishing returns. How many would survive if 5 comapnies had to build out to your neighborhood and compete with each other for service?
If they intentionally drop packets, is that still a definition of "best effort" that would stand up in a breach of contract lawsuit?
No. If I intentionally detriment your traffic, you should sue me and I hope you win. And the FCC is going to fine the hell out of me. Leaving your traffic at best effort is not detrimenting it.
Unfortunately this has nothing to do with charging a particular company in order to not reduce their relative priority for the same class of service.
Nice wording. Relative. In the ideal world, there would always be enough bandwidth everywhere. But that is not going to happen. You know that. When your network is congested, traffic gets dropped. If I have the ability to make your Vonage traffic a higher QoS so your 911 calls get through instead of your neighbors torrent download, you think that should be regulated?
I have to admit, I am biased. The odds are pretty good that if you are a US cable modem user, you are on my network. The things people say that we (infrastructure companies)are wanting to do or are doing, is not what I want to do. I can't compete with Vonage on a price point, because I have to pay for my network. I can compete with them on a quality basis. Not by making their product worse, but by making my product better. I will bake the cost in to the cost of the service. I will offer to make Vonage better, for a few bucks. I do not care who pays for it, customer or multi billion dollar corporations. Does not matter to me.
I move 150G a second on my network. If I'm dropping packets, I fix it. I prefer quantity of service. Always have enough bandwith. If i have to reroute around congestion, I do it.
I don't want to charge the ocmpanies for the traffic they are moving on my network. If it is a lot of traffic and I can only get to it through a transit provider, I work with them for a solution. Private interconnects are preferred. Not only does it reduce the cost for both of us, it also improves the service. Unfortunately, the rbocs aren't known for their peering.
I have not 'bought' in to anything that AT&T and Verizon have been saying. I know how I run my network. I know I want to have the biggest baddest network around. And I get slightly irritated with the stuff I get accused of doing. So if you want to regulate them, knock yourself out.
In a way, I want this law to pass. IPTV with no QoS? That will be something to see. I couldn't imagine trying to sell it as a service where it has to compete with p2p. Could be the end of the telco's. That's unfortunate. Really.
Sorry, Cable companies didn't get subsidized at all. have fun with the telcos. I agree, make them provide service for free until they go out of business.
Cable companies offer their service as best effort. No promised bandwidth. Cable companies want to offer you QoS for your voip call, but Vonage wants to stop that. Why do you suppose that is?
Obviously you have bought in to the "ISP's want to filter you" when all they asked to do was set QoS. Well guess what, QoS has been running on networks for years.
You wanna fix the issue? Make mandatory interconnects necessary for companies who exchange X amount of traffic. Knock out the level3's of the worl who are double dipping, making double profit, and laughing at the content providers and eyeball providers.
Make laws that make sense, not ones that pretectionist for flawed business models.
But I guess when you don't really know what youa re talking about it is best to just cuss and call people names.
Why is it easier for you to tell someone who has spent the money to build their network what to do witht heir network? I know why, because you like not having to pay.
The net should be free. As in speech. Not free as in beer.
Net neutrality isn't about ISP's blocking content, even though that is what VOIP providers would like you to believe.
net neutrality is about their service being a best effort service on a congested network and not being able to compete with the people who can set a higher QoS. It breaks their "WHEE! I GET TO USE YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE FOR FREE" business model.
So they have the nerve to try to get a law passed so they can compete. The reason they can't compete is because they don't have an infrastructure.
People need to get over this idea of a free public internet. It doesn't exist. The Internet is just networks owned by provate companies. if they decide to not connect with any other networks tomorrow, are you going to force them to?
If I decide not to pay a transit provider for your routes, are you going to force me to? Why should i have to pay 30 bucks a meg for your traffic? You think that is fair?
Slashdot Mirror
Oops. Yes, that is what I meant. :) megs per second. 95th percentile for the month. While peering is happening more and more as they build their backbones, they still pay a lot for bandwidth.
You can't be serious. Since NO cable companies are transit free, they pay per meg usage to their transit providers. The more you use, the more they have to pay. They either raise your rates or eat the cost of upgrading the network for free. They are a for profit company. DO you think they will just 'eat the cost'? VOIP, IPTV, and anything else requiring bandwidth will cease to function as they did. They can't offer you a QOS service to commit bandwidth to you because of all of the 'network neutrality' nonsense.
Keep thinking bandwidth is free and noone has to pay for it. Just don't be surprised when your 'best effort' service takes a minute to load a web page and your bandwidth sensitive services no longer function.
just because you can break the law easily, does not mean it is allowed. I can't wait until all of the people who access networks illegally are thrown in jail. it should be much quieter around here.
All of the people who could teach these students the correct way are all busy doing real job. Those who can, do. Whose who can't, teach.
We pay up to $60 per month to have this great thing called broadband, and what do we get?
A best effort burstable connection.
Carriers wanting to restrict VOIP use, throttling Bittorrent traffic, refusing to guarantee any particular level of service, etc
I have only heard of one company blocking competitor's voip, and that was dealt with by the FCC. As far as QoS goes, the service providers would like to offer higher QoS for a fee, which I have no issue with. Unfortunately, some folks are of the opinion that offering a QoS service is a Net Neutrality issue and would like to see legislation passed to prevent service providers from offering such a service.
As a small publisher that generates less than 1k a month on my website, this will change what I have to do to fund my site. My readers are very targetted and only specific ads from a few companies show up on my site. I am better off becoming an affiliate of the advertiser directly than taking a the small percentage I would get from Google. It's going to cost Google money, not me.
You aren't wrong. This hasn't happened. It isn't happening. And it won't happen.
RTFA and you will notice every thing they say is could, may, might, possibly.
It isn't happening. Go to savetheinternet.com and read their multiple examples of this happening. All 4 of them. 2 are in canada and wouldn't be impacted by this law anyway, 1 was AOl and a messed up filter and 1 was a little rinky dink isp that the FCC fined for blocking their competitors VOIP.
The truth is, there are no laws stopping the infrastructure providers from doing this now, yet they aren't doing it. Why would that be? Oh, because it doesn't make business sense? Like it is going to make more sense as more options are available to the consumer?
This is about a broken business model (transit providers charging both sides) and the companies who are trying to not have that business model change. There is a 25% chance that I am your provider right now and i have total control of my network. I would never block or degrade your traffic. I would upgrade your traffic if you paid me. Granted, the Telco's have been known to do some stupid stuff in the past, but here we are trying to write laws to fix a problem that does not exist at the risk of stopping public companies from investing in the Infrastructure that people like to call the Internet.
What will happen if these laws are passed? People will stop peering. No more free traffic, everyone gets charged the same, and everyones costs shoot up so that the people who are building the infrastructure can afford to keep doing so. If the government wants to regulate something, force everyone to peer and stop using 3rd parties to carry their traffic to other networks. In that case the eyeball and the content networks make money (as in make money by spending less) and can afford bigger better pipes.
Enough with the monopoly stuff too. Satellite, telco, cable, and wireless are options for most people. If you don't have that in your area, it's because it is too expensive to build there. I am sure that restricting the money they can make off that infrastructure will encourage more people to get in to that business.
I know, it's all the big bad evil corporations lying about this, right? Which big bad corporations would that be? Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast? Or Ebay, Microsoft, and Google?
It's only a requirement if they offer the service as a 'primary line' service, which is why I said he should ask his provider. Even from the same provider the service will differ between areas.
You appear to be on comcast. You should ask them if the rf plant is backed up also. You could have power in your house all day, but if your node is down.. not going to matter.
Now, don't go confusing the issue with facts. This is Slashdot.
If the people who actually build the infrastructure have to pay a tax on a service they offer, why shoudn't the other people who use that same infrastructure for the same service have to pay? It's about a level playing field.
Go Go Net Neutrality! Treat every service the same no matter who it is provided by is what Slashdot has been preaching, isn't it? Oh, or should that only apply when it does not cost the end users money?
On the backbone level, there is competition.
I suppose you can say there is a monopoly at the local level if you are not in an area served by DSL, CABLE, FIOS, SATELLITE, and WIRELESS.
If you are not in a well served area, Net neutrality is not going to change that. These companies wanting to overbuild other providers only want to do it in prime locations. Loudon county will end up with 5 providers but innercity Detroit will still only have 1 or 2 providers.
Just because there is competition does not mean it is free. Someone still has to pay for it. My question was "who?". I guess I must be missing it because I am not sure how what you pointed out has any impact. Can you clarify?
They are providing it, but the cost is going up. This not about not wanting to provide it. This is about wanting to provide it in a way that makes business sense, to everyone.
The problem is the business model of the Internet is broken. The eyeball and content providers are stuck paying some third party for transit and they are raking in their 30 bucks a meg from both ends.
Dont legislate net neutrality. legislate interconnections.
I dont know about that, in all honesty.
I think right now the fees being paid would cover it all, if they were going to the right people. If google and comcast both have to pay someone else to carry their traffic through one router and neither of them gets a penny, there is something wrong there. The ocntent providers and eyeballs are both getting billed by a 3rd party company when that would all go away if they would just directly interconnect.
Note: Google is peering so this does not really apply to them, I just like typing Google more than Vonage.
Amen brother.
What most of these people seem to be missing is that there is a middle man (level3) for instance, that is charging the content and eyeball providers. Raise the rates to google and Level3 makes more money, not your isp. Tos olve this, remove the middle men and directly peer. the Internet isn't pbroken, this really stupid business model is.
Sure. When your local city pays the companies the billions they paid to built it, maybe it will happen.
And then once they own the local access network, who pays the cost of transit and moving that traffic to other networks? or do yout hink your local access network runs all the way to google's front door?
There are so many issues involved here that none of these simple little solutions will work.
You seem to think that the telcos/cable companies have no cost associated with getting content to their netowrk. that isn't the case. As the average amount of bandwidth a customer uses go up (doubled in the last year), so does the costs to the eyeball and content providers with no new revenue.
They nee dto cut out the middle men (transit providers) and directly interconnect. Pretty soon you may find your provider is unwilling to pay to get traffic to Vonage. Regardless of what net neutrality laws are passed, they can not force a provider to pay for traffic from someone they do not want to pay for. Vonage may not want to pay to reach that telco, and they don't have to either. What will happen under this new legislation, if passed, will be a split of the net. the telcos / cable companies will just not pay anyone for transit and you do not connect to their network directly, you can not access it.
While we are on the topic, just how exactly did the private infrastructure of a private company become 'the internet' and what makes anyone think they have the right to tell a private company how to run their network? I'll be over your house tomorrow to install my pr0n server on your lan. Its the internet and it should be free, right? oh.. it doesn't apply to every network? just some? Can anyone point me to the white paper that expalins which networks are 'the internet' and which ones arent?
if AT&T disconnected their backbone from everyone else tomorrow, do they have their very own Internet now? If comcast's access network is the Internet, do they have to provide you access to anything else since they are just selling you internet access? if my backbone is 'The internet' do i get to say i built the internet? If i do, will Gore get mad?
Actually, that isnt exactly right.
Google does pay a company for transit. generally, the transit companies are also charging the last mile providers. The ocntent providers need to cut out the transit providers and connect directly to the eyeball providers. Both eyeball and content company save money and have a better performing service. Google is alreadying peering with my network, so tey are ont he right track.
the transit providers are sitting back and raking in the money from both ends as the eyeball and content providers fight it out about who is going to pay for the infrastructure expansions.
net neutrality legislation should carry mandatory peering requirements for networks exchanging a certain level of traffic. This solves this issue. of course, the transit providers might get a little miffed not being able to double charge for traffic that they arent the origination or destination of.
just an fyi. In Theory, ATM overhead is 9.6%. In reality, it ends up being closer to 20%. This is one of the main reasons ATM never had much traction past oc12 speeds. Who wants to give up 1/5 of their bandwidth just for overhead? that's 20% of your total available bandwidth that you can't realize revenue on.
Unfortunately, cable is a best effort service. That means the cable company will make the best effort to provide you the bandwidth they say you can have. Of course, to do anything that can ensure you will have that bandwidth available (QOS?), would be illegal under all of these new net neutrality laws.
I am sure if you called up your cable companies transit provider and bought a dedicated t1 from then for 600-2000 bucks a month you would be able to get your promised speeds. Or not. Apparently it will be illegal for them to reserve bandwidth for their customers because they are not reserving it for people who are not paying them.
Excuse me while I go amuse myself by reading some more net neutrality bills.
ISP's that do not have their own peering / backbone have to pay transit costs on a per meg basis. A standard per meg cost may be 30 dollars ( check with your local transit provider for a realistic price for your traffic) per meg at the 95th percentile. If your ISP is paying 30 dollars per meg, should they charge you 33 dollars a meg (10% profit) + hardware and manpower costs?
The internet business model is busted all to hell. Content providers are charged per meg. transit providers charge per meg. End users are charged a flat rate.
In the last year, the average enduser consumption has doubled. This means the ISP's transit costs have doubled with no increase in revenue per customer. The ISP's are trying to find a way to change the business model.
Your view that it needs to change is rare amongst users. How do you think most users would react to a metered service?
I agree with what you said 100%, unfortunately, we appear to be in the minority.
Oh, and there is another solution, for those big enough to use it. Remove the transit providers from the picture. Content providers, once they are exchanging a certain level of traffic with an ISP, should peer (interconnect directly. This elimates costs for content and eyeball providers, increases performance and reliability, totally eliminates another network from the picture that is out of control of the ISP and content provider.
Of course, good luck convincing AT&T to peer with anyone.
Now your thinking so, just lay your own lines, Well you can't. You can connect a few building across the country or town, but the "last mile" (as it is called) needed to deliver it to homes is regulated to the point only existing cable companies and public telcos can lay the lines required. With this lock in on service providers who do benefit from regulations stoping competition, they are going to try and charge you for 3 meg access then turn around and slow down the sites you are going to access to under 3 meg unless they pay some fee. It is actualy more complicated then this but thats the idea.
;)
Actually, wireless is going to be a killer competitor. And satellite is getting faster all of the time. Is 4 competitors (if there is only 1 of each) to your front door too few? That is already spreading the margins too thin for anyone to think it worth it to build in to that area. It really is economics.
What would be nice is if they made the home owner the owner of the last mile. Give them the choice of who to connect it to.
You say cable companies only want to use QoS to clear the trafic up. Well implemented corectly, this will actualy speed the network up. But from what i hear with SBC and other telcos, It is actualy wanted to be used to slow down content providers who don't pay them a ransom fee.
I can only speak for my network. I could not imagine in what world it would make sense to ever detriment traffic on my network. Never. iIwouldn't put it past them telco's though. You should switch everything to cable today
The problem isn't making them pay for a service, it is that the service is already payed for when i purchase my service to contact them. Thye pay for thier service to contact me. We both have payed, Why is it going to cost them more money now?/i?
Your contract to me says you will receive a 16meg down 2 meg up (or whatever) best effort service. What I am saying is that I can make your voice and video traffic better than best effort. And honestly, they need it. Just a little congestion can break a stream.
Maybe Vonage would like to sell it to you. Yhey can sell their customers a higher QoS service and pay the isp's to make it a higher QoS. I do not see the problem with this. Take it or leave it. if you want it, great. If you don't great. of course, I could only control traffic on my network so i would prefer if they had a direct interconnect with me.
That said, I can see where this could be abused. If AT&T wanted to degrade the Vonage service on their network, they most certainly could. They could block it all together if they wanted. And the FCC would smakc them with a fine. I don't know how big a fine it would take for AT&T to notice, but I wouldn't mind seeing them feel some pain for their arrogance.
I don't want to get in to the business model of the Internet. The providers have to pay by the bit and sell it at an all you can eat price. Is it any wonder the service providers are concerned whent he average customers bandwidth usage has doubled in the last year?
I am not going to make your service worse. I am not going to charge you more for the same service. But, I'll offer you an upgraded service. If you want it.
I apologize. I was thinking of the PUC funds the Telco's received when I made that statement. But you are correct, cable companies have received assistance / incentives / tax breaks, etc. pretty much what most large corporations get.
As far as a disclaimer goes:
I run the IP network for a cable company. My network has never received a penny from the government to be built. I do find it amusing people like to call my network "The Internet". Me and Al Gore. We built it all, you know?
Can I be both? An idiotic asshole has a certain.. as the French say, I don't know what.
No, but they do get the franchise contracts that lock out competitors.
In case you have missed it, the government is falling all over themselves giving the rbocs the same old breaks they always do. Including statewide franchises.
Honestly, would they spend the money to build in to an area if they had to split it with several competitors? The cost would be prohibitive and these ARE corporations. The infrastructure to deliver broadband to your house would just now be arriving from the telco's.
In an ideal world, the infrastructure companies could afford to build out to the ruralest of areas. We would have 10 or 20 carriers to the front door. But every overbuild has diminishing returns. How many would survive if 5 comapnies had to build out to your neighborhood and compete with each other for service?
If they intentionally drop packets, is that still a definition of "best effort" that would stand up in a breach of contract lawsuit?
No. If I intentionally detriment your traffic, you should sue me and I hope you win. And the FCC is going to fine the hell out of me. Leaving your traffic at best effort is not detrimenting it.
Unfortunately this has nothing to do with charging a particular company in order to not reduce their relative priority for the same class of service.
Nice wording. Relative. In the ideal world, there would always be enough bandwidth everywhere. But that is not going to happen. You know that. When your network is congested, traffic gets dropped. If I have the ability to make your Vonage traffic a higher QoS so your 911 calls get through instead of your neighbors torrent download, you think that should be regulated?
I have to admit, I am biased. The odds are pretty good that if you are a US cable modem user, you are on my network. The things people say that we (infrastructure companies)are wanting to do or are doing, is not what I want to do. I can't compete with Vonage on a price point, because I have to pay for my network. I can compete with them on a quality basis. Not by making their product worse, but by making my product better. I will bake the cost in to the cost of the service. I will offer to make Vonage better, for a few bucks. I do not care who pays for it, customer or multi billion dollar corporations. Does not matter to me.
I move 150G a second on my network. If I'm dropping packets, I fix it. I prefer quantity of service. Always have enough bandwith. If i have to reroute around congestion, I do it.
I don't want to charge the ocmpanies for the traffic they are moving on my network. If it is a lot of traffic and I can only get to it through a transit provider, I work with them for a solution. Private interconnects are preferred. Not only does it reduce the cost for both of us, it also improves the service. Unfortunately, the rbocs aren't known for their peering.
I have not 'bought' in to anything that AT&T and Verizon have been saying. I know how I run my network. I know I want to have the biggest baddest network around. And I get slightly irritated with the stuff I get accused of doing. So if you want to regulate them, knock yourself out.
In a way, I want this law to pass. IPTV with no QoS? That will be something to see. I couldn't imagine trying to sell it as a service where it has to compete with p2p. Could be the end of the telco's. That's unfortunate. Really.
thanks for the conversation.
Sorry, Cable companies didn't get subsidized at all. have fun with the telcos. I agree, make them provide service for free until they go out of business.
Cable companies offer their service as best effort. No promised bandwidth. Cable companies want to offer you QoS for your voip call, but Vonage wants to stop that. Why do you suppose that is?
Obviously you have bought in to the "ISP's want to filter you" when all they asked to do was set QoS. Well guess what, QoS has been running on networks for years.
You wanna fix the issue? Make mandatory interconnects necessary for companies who exchange X amount of traffic. Knock out the level3's of the worl who are double dipping, making double profit, and laughing at the content providers and eyeball providers.
Make laws that make sense, not ones that pretectionist for flawed business models.
But I guess when you don't really know what youa re talking about it is best to just cuss and call people names.
So, build your own network. Easy solution.
Why is it easier for you to tell someone who has spent the money to build their network what to do witht heir network? I know why, because you like not having to pay.
The net should be free. As in speech. Not free as in beer.
Net neutrality isn't about ISP's blocking content, even though that is what VOIP providers would like you to believe.
net neutrality is about their service being a best effort service on a congested network and not being able to compete with the people who can set a higher QoS. It breaks their "WHEE! I GET TO USE YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE FOR FREE" business model.
So they have the nerve to try to get a law passed so they can compete. The reason they can't compete is because they don't have an infrastructure.
People need to get over this idea of a free public internet. It doesn't exist. The Internet is just networks owned by provate companies. if they decide to not connect with any other networks tomorrow, are you going to force them to?
If I decide not to pay a transit provider for your routes, are you going to force me to? Why should i have to pay 30 bucks a meg for your traffic? You think that is fair?