FCC and Net Neutrality

[Imakeholesinu]

Big vote today. Make sure your reps hear from you to support it.

www.savetheinternet.com

[Julius Seeker]

There are some potential implied legalizations with net neutrality that I don't think people have considered, including: broadcasting child and animal abuse for profit, piracy, displaying personal information without consent, and criminal applications (viruses).

Some form of content control would be desireable.

[Kupek]

Mr. Genachowski also sought to address the heavy criticism his proposal has received from telecommunications companies that his plan would lead to gridlock on the Internet because they would not be allowed to act as traffic cops.

His plan included an extensive list of “reasonable network management practices” that would be permitted.

These included reducing the effect of network congestion, guaranteeing customers a certain quality of service, giving priority to communications by public safety agencies, and preventing illegal uses of the network, such as the unauthorized transmission of copyrighted works.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/2 ... eutrality/

[Imakeholesinu]

+1 Kupek!

Looks like the vote passed 3 to 2 so they are taking comments on Jan 19th and then rebuttals will be in March.

[Julius Seeker]

-1 Seeker =(

Well, I support that.

[Zeus]

There are some potential implied legalizations with net neutrality that I don't think people have considered, including: broadcasting child and animal abuse for profit, piracy, displaying personal information without consent, and criminal applications (viruses).

Some form of content control would be desireable.

This is fear mongering talk from the opposition. You want content control only to the absolute most basic items, such as illegal activities....that's it. Everything else is BS talk to allow the ISPs extra control to discriminate or instill other practices in order to maximize profits, regardless of the level of harm it may cause the public.

The FCC and CRTC both need to severely have their balls cut-off and their entire operations revamped and heavily scrutinized. In the communications age, their importance has far exceeded anyone's wildest dreams/nightmares. Their antiquated methods and complete lack of visibility are incredibly inadequate in the current world. I'm happy to see the new head of the FCC feels that way at least at the most basic, philosophical level

[SineSwiper]

Yeah, I work for a cable company, and let me tell you, there is less bandwidth than you think for "unlimited" Internet. A standard DOCSIS 2.0 downstream can hold a maximum of 38Mbps, and a downstream typically has 700-1000 modems on it. If you're trying to push 10-20Mbps speeds on a pipe like that, you only need 2-4 people maxing out their modems to kill the bandwidth. An upstream can go upwards of 9Mbps, which has about 100-200 modems on it.

That's why the telcos are freaking out over net neutrality. Some of you fuckers like to leech as much as you want using P2P, which is why there had been so much hoopla over P2P traffic shaping. Really, the only two things that actually use all of the bandwidth all of the time are P2P and viruses, since they are both one-to-many and many-to-one protocols.

Really, the only reason why other people wanted net neutrality was because of ISPs that would block competitor's sites, not traffic shaping. Of course, the term "net neutrality" means a thousand different things, so the term has been wielded as a generic club to hit people with for a while.

[Imakeholesinu]

Yeah, I work for a cable company, and let me tell you, there is less bandwidth than you think for "unlimited" Internet. A standard DOCSIS 2.0 downstream can hold a maximum of 38Mbps, and a downstream typically has 700-1000 modems on it. If you're trying to push 10-20Mbps speeds on a pipe like that, you only need 2-4 people maxing out their modems to kill the bandwidth. An upstream can go upwards of 9Mbps, which has about 100-200 modems on it.

That's why the telcos are freaking out over net neutrality. Some of you fuckers like to leech as much as you want using P2P, which is why there had been so much hoopla over P2P traffic shaping. Really, the only two things that actually use all of the bandwidth all of the time are P2P and viruses, since they are both one-to-many and many-to-one protocols.

Really, the only reason why other people wanted net neutrality was because of ISPs that would block competitor's sites, not traffic shaping. Of course, the term "net neutrality" means a thousand different things, so the term has been wielded as a generic club to hit people with for a while.

The problem I see with the logic that behind the P2P thing is that I have DirecTV and download shows to my DVR. These are rather large in size especially the high def ones. If I were to start downloading a season of something in HD I would be screwed for the month and wouldn't be able to use anything else on my PC. I also have to use Citrix for work, while it isn't a bandwitdth hog persay, I still need it to function.

The telco companies kind of did this to themselves, stating that they were going to roll out fibre to some 86 million people by the end of 2006. I doubt half that number even is on schedule to get it now in 2009.

This whole thing wouldn't be an issue if the telco's had upgraded their infrastrucutre how they said they were going to.

Explain this to me also sine, how is it that countries in Europe like Sweden and Japan have affordable 100MB internet when we pay the same for 6MB?

[Kupek]

What concerns me is, as Sine said, one provider giving special access to someone's content. That is, I don't want Microsoft to be able to pay ISPs to favor their traffic over Google.

Concerning the fact that bandwidth is a finite resource, I've said here before that I would be fine if internet access used the same pay-what-you-use model of electricity and water.

Explain this to me also sine, how is it that countries in Europe like Sweden and Japan have affordable 100MB internet when we pay the same for 6MB?

USA area: 3,794,101 sq mi
Sweden area: 173,732 sq mi
Japan area: 145,883 sq mi

The US is an order of magnitude larger. It's not the whole story, but you can't ignore it. Also keep in mind that New York City's population is 90% of the entirety of Sweden.

[Imakeholesinu]

What concerns me is, as Sine said, one provider giving special access to someone's content. That is, I don't want Microsoft to be able to pay ISPs to favor their traffic over Google.

Concerning the fact that bandwidth is a finite resource, I've said here before that I would be fine if internet access used the same pay-what-you-use model of electricity and water.

Explain this to me also sine, how is it that countries in Europe like Sweden and Japan have affordable 100MB internet when we pay the same for 6MB?

USA area: 3,794,101 sq mi
Sweden area: 173,732 sq mi
Japan area: 145,883 sq mi

The US is an order of magnitude larger. It's not the whole story, but you can't ignore it. Also keep in mind that New York City's population is 90% of the entirety of Sweden.

I agree with the tiered fear surrounding a tiered internet like what Kupek stated in his example. That would eventually kill off a lot of the openness of the internet.

I am afraid of metered broadband like what you described in comparison to the utility companies because of the metrics that these companies would use to gauge what is over and what is under. Say for instance AT&T says we're going to charge $1 per 1GB. I know for a fact that in the last 2 days I've downloaded 10GB worth of data from Microsoft in updates and software for two machines. Not only that but I know I've logged into and spent a couple hours on citrix this month for work. So what am I supposed to do? I've probably used close to 30GB of traffic in a week. What is to stop AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, Charter, Mediacom etc from charging like this. Let's say I used 30GB a week, 120GB a month for On-demand from DirecTV, Work, Internet Browsing, and such? A lot of people will stop going on line for fear of a high bill. I'd pay $120 a month for service that I used to pay $30. Is that right?

The reason a lot of people are pissed off is because the way all the telcos are doing business is changing when a lot of people feel it doesn't need to.

Not only that, how would I be able to tell how much bandwidth I'm using? Give me some transparency so I don't believe they are over charging me. I can go to my gas meter in my house and my electric meter on the exterior of my house and look. If they are going to meter, then you need to allow me to view what my usage is at a glance.

And also, what about unsolicited traffic to my connection? How will that be billed? For example, I go to a website and someone else checks my connection? or I download a torrent and I use peer guardian, I'm not trying to make connections to anyone else but people in the swarm but people not in the swarm are trying to see what I'm doing. What do I do about that?

Another thing! What about if I make a P2P connection to another AT&T user to get a file, will both of us be charged? Isn't that double dipping? Or will it work like a cellphone, people who connect to other AT&T users won't be charged?

How about gaming? I download all of my games from Steam. So now instead of paying tax to the government I'm paying a tax to the ISP? Online gaming as well, how will that work?

[Kupek]

Conflating internet access (where the client demands data) with cable tv access (where the data is pushed through no matter what, with constant, static demand easily calculable based on subscribers) doesn't work.

For the rest of your argument, I don't follow. I'm saying the only model that works is people should pay for what they use. Right now we're pretending that a finite resource is infinite. That's fine with, say, the $45 a ticket amusement park model where a heavy user can't consume an order of magnitude resources than a light user. In that case, it's easier to pretend that everyone costs the same, since the relatively small difference in cost from a light user and a heavy user doesn't justify the extra effort of figuring out exactly how much a user consumes.

Internet access is not like that. Internet access is like water or electricity. A family of six in an eight bedroom house will consume more water and electricity than Shrin and I do in our small, two bedroom townhouse. And in this case, the cost of measuring usage is trivial.

Perhaps it's time for people to ask themselves "Hmmm, is it worth the extra cost to download this episode of this anime I don't really care about?" We do that with electricity and water (turning lights off when leaving the room, putting on a sweater instead of turning up the heat, not taking hour long showers). We should probably do it with internet access, too.

What I'm hoping for is that normal internet usage will, even with the pay-what-you-use model, cost about the same as it does now for most people. But for people who torrent movies literally all day long, you're going to pay more. And you probably should.

[Zeus]

Whoa, hold on Kup, are you suggesting that we allow the ISPs to charge on a per-GB basis? You're talking about "paying for what they use" which has some serious issues and Barret makes a few of good points (sorry it's a bit long, but it's important for the points to be made properly):

1) How do people actually know what they use?

Do you honestly think that corrupt agencies like the FCC and CRTC would ever pass a law with teeth that forces the ISPs to give you a digital "meter" (here's the ironic thing: it would actually cost you bandwith - and thus, money - to have this meter running) so you know exactly how much bandwidth you're using and how (ie. upload, download, etc.; preferable if by program)? If so, you have far more faith in the regulatory agencies than they've proven they deserve (look at text messaging in cell-phones; this is a major issue up here where you get charged per message received and junk mail messages are normal). This would be completely unprecedented transparency enforced by an agency that has none.

And I don't want a third-party "meter", I want it directly from my ISP so I can review/audit it and go back to them if I so wish.

2) How do people stop unwanted/unsolicited use of their bandwidth?

With electricity and water, I can unplug an appliance or flick a switch to shut it down completely if I so wish. When they're "on" I can completely control my usage, assuming I know which electronic devices that are plugged in are actually using electricity when "off" and I have no leaks in any of my faucets.

Are you trying to tell me that the average consumer will be given the proper tools by the ISPs or software companies to be able to self-monitor like that? You have to at least acknowledge that these would be essential tools if you're charging people per use. And if you think that these tools would be properly constructed and made readily available for free (hey, they're charging us for Internet, they have to provide us with the tools to monitor) or even a nominal fee, again, you have far more faith in our regulatory system than I do.

3) How will this work with the popularity of the bandwidth-using multimedia options that are increasingly on a daily basis?

We all know that people like me comprise what, 10% of the population that uses 90% of the bandwidth? Let's just say we allow the ISPs to choke us out and remove the whole crazy "freedom" idea the Internet is based on (it's inevitable anyways). We're not talking about me, we're talking about the other 90% or the majority of the population.

Let's start with the easy one: video streaming, particularly in HD. There are more and more official websites that come up almost daily that legally allow you to stream movies/shows in HD (hello, Hulu). So let's say we have a teenager (or Seek) who "can't be bothered" or "is far too busy" to follow their shows at their regularly scheduled times on TV (or don't want to pay for TV) and don't want to pay the ridiculous TiVO fees and they stream or download through Netflix 15 or 20 hours of video content in a week through their PC or even Xbox 360. In the HD era, let's say that adds up to about 15GB a week (if not yet, it may soon). That 60GB a month is actually the limit on 'Net usage up here by our big ISPs. That's before you even do anything else on the 'Net.

And this is now. We all know that the bandwidth requirements for these types of very legal, profit-making activities will only increase in the future. Do you have faith that the laws set out by our regulatory agencies will not only accounting for the rapid changes the entire industry is going through on an almost monthly basis but also be able to react in a timely manner (ie. very quickly) to any future changes that may occur? Again, if you believe that there is a snowball's chance in hell that we can get the gov't to actual react in a timely manner to anything, particularly something moving this fast, you have a faith in our political system that I very honestly envy.

Simply put, a pay-per-use would be, by far and away, the worst possible thing for the consumers and something that would be an unmitigated disaster considering the track record of the FCC and CRTC. $120 per month for non-torrent users would be normal. In an era where Internet usage is become as important or even moreso than tradition entertainment or communication options, this is exactly the opposite what you want to see.

[Kupek]

Hi, wall o' text!

I'm going to try to be brief.

Open up the dialog box that shows the status of your connection. Your upload/download stats are there. The information you want already exists on your computer.

If you don't want people consuming your bandwidth, protect your network.

You're assuming that pay-for-what-you-use has to be more expensive. I don't see any reason why that has to be the case. Someone who streams a few hours of content a day is different from someone who has torrents going literally all day long. When there are orders of magnitude differences in a resource's usage, flat fees no longer work.

I want internet access to be like a utility. That includes the utility payment model, but I'm also open to utility-like regulations.

This is my central point: we can no longer pretend that internet access is an infinite resource.

[Don]

I think it's funny how the debate is spin as 'net neutrality' so if you're against it you're not 'neutral' and that's probably supposed to be bad.

All this thing about 'unlimited bandwidth' is rather silly. An all-you-can-eat buffet doesn't assume everyone who shows up is going to be Kobayashi, or to put things more in perspective, any fictional character who can consume an insane amount of food (Saiyans come to mind, but plenty other such examples exist). Just as all-you-can-eat is not designed to serve Saiyans, unlimited bandwidth isn't designed to serve P2P.

[Imakeholesinu]

Hi, wall o' text!

I'm going to try to be brief.

Open up the dialog box that shows the status of your connection. Your upload/download stats are there. The information you want already exists on your computer.

I have multiple devices in my home and I stream content from my PC to my PS3 and other PC. I transfer files back and forth between my PC's. Not only that but there is plenty of "chatter" between all devices connected to my wireless network as it is so this reading would never be correct. The monitor would need to exist on the modem or between my modem and my switch to accurately display how much my devices talk out to the internet and not to just one another.

If you don't want people consuming your bandwidth, protect your network.

My network is wired and if I do do wireless I filter by MAC address of the wireless adapters that connect to my network. What Zeus and I are talking about are sites we do not request (IE pop-ups) that tag along to pages we browse or people sniffing or pinging our modems or scanning our firewalls or traffic to see what we are doing online. This is serious overhead and unwanted traffic that we, the consumer cannot control but will be charged for.

You're assuming that pay-for-what-you-use has to be more expensive.

You're damn right I am! Why the hell don't cable companies allow me to do al-la-carte for my channels? Cause it's too expensive for them to do it. So when they want you to do al-la-carte internet, it is going to be DAMN expensive for you. What is to say all the telco's get together and price fix at $1 a 1GB of bandwidth?

I don't see any reason why that has to be the case.

See above.

Someone who streams a few hours of content a day is different from someone who has torrents going literally all day long.

Agreed...

When there are orders of magnitude differences in a resource's usage, flat fees no longer work.

But there aren't though. I pay for 768KB connection. Just like torrenter A who pays for 6MB connection. He pays $30 for his connection through ISP XYZ while I pay $20 for my connection ZYX. He gets to get content faster, thus uses more. the more the ISP companies gave us, the more we used. That's why Youtube, redtube (NSFW) and youporn (NSFW) blew up to be huge sites! That's how we got bittorrent! that's how Neflix started streaming movies on demand! That's how we got On-Demand service from Cable and Satellite companies! This is a simple concept, you give a mouse a cookie and he'll download 1 night in paris. That is the model the internet was built upon, varying connection speeds but unlimited potential and connections. Go where you want, whenever you want on the internet.

I want internet access to be like a utility.

It is already! You pay $xx.xx for xxxxKB connection!

That includes the utility payment model, but I'm also open to utility-like regulations.

This would drive away millions of people from the internet because so many developers have developed websites that have flash, or use large image files and things like that to stream content. Not only that but you are killing off the advertiser business as well since no one goes to websites anymore. This will effectively nerf the internet content and services we use today.

This is my central point: we can no longer pretend that internet access is an infinite resource.

My central point is is explain to me how it is finite? Are we going to all the sudden run out of bits? How?

My reasoning for this is as follows. I have a 1GB home network. This is local throughout my house. Any person who connects to my home network will have have 1GB or less. If you transfer a file on my network to another device on my network that will a 1GB transfer. The problem is though there is no hardware to support a true 1GB transfer. Hell there is no hardware to support a true 100MB transfer rate either! Disk seek times are no where near being able to keep up with how much data you can pump through that ethernet cable you've got or those cables you've got coming to your house. There is plenty of room in all the pipes to do this.

[Julius Seeker]

+2 more for Kupek - for having to repeat his point.

We shouldn't allow the water companies to charge us by the liter either. Afterall, what about us people who want to water our lawn all day and every day, we would have to pay more? Or what about my pond? Since it is significantly above the water table; I have to keep my fountain -hooked up directly to the town water supply- on all day to keep the pond full. Water should be charged a flat rate. I want to be able to get my inconsiderately greedy hands on as much of the stuff as I can. I support Aqua Neutrality.

[Imakeholesinu]

+2 more for Kupek - for having to repeat his point.

We shouldn't allow the water companies to charge us by the liter either. Afterall, what about us people who want to water our lawn all day and every day, we would have to pay more? Or what about my pond? Since it is significantly above the water table; I have to keep my fountain -hooked up directly to the town water supply- on all day to keep the pond full. Water should be charged a flat rate. I want to be able to get my inconsiderately greedy hands on as much of the stuff as I can. I support Aqua Neutrality.

Prove bandwidth is a finite resource that we will use up. I don't hear stories about how we only have 66 Billion gallons of bandwidth left underneath Antartica.

We already know Water is a finite resource.

[Kupek]

Bandwidth is finite because its capacity is necessarily less than the theoretical demand that can be placed on it. Keep in mind that we're using "bandwidth" loosely, since in practical terms, it's not just the actual bandwidth of the wires that you're limited by, but also by the ability of the routers in your ISP to keep up with traffic. This is the "i" word I keep bring up: infrastructure. Building our infrastructure to the point that it can handle the theoretical peak usage is not an option. Hence, we must multiplex its use, which means it becomes finite.

The point that Sine has made, but I think is lost on some of you, is that the status-quo can not be sustained.

[Julius Seeker]

+2 more for Kupek - for having to repeat his point.

We shouldn't allow the water companies to charge us by the liter either. Afterall, what about us people who want to water our lawn all day and every day, we would have to pay more? Or what about my pond? Since it is significantly above the water table; I have to keep my fountain -hooked up directly to the town water supply- on all day to keep the pond full. Water should be charged a flat rate. I want to be able to get my inconsiderately greedy hands on as much of the stuff as I can. I support Aqua Neutrality.

Prove bandwidth is a finite resource that we will use up. I don't hear stories about how we only have 66 Billion gallons of bandwidth left underneath Antartica.

We already know Water is a finite resource.

Damn! Kupek beat me. In case there is any confusion:


Above is the water cycle. It is a finite resource due to the fact that while it is constantly produced, there is a potential demand on the supply existing which exceeds the natural production of fresh water in the evaporation through condensation stages. While reservoirs are constantly being replenished, using water creates stress on the system by taking from the reservoirs. Charging the use of water allows a form of control. Most people will only use water to maintain their adequate daily needs rather than using it in excess for their pleasure. Everyone else who wants to have constant running water can have it; but, they have to pay more.

[Imakeholesinu]

Bandwidth is finite because its capacity is necessarily less than the theoretical demand that can be placed on it. Keep in mind that we're using "bandwidth" loosely, since in practical terms, it's not just the actual bandwidth of the wires that you're limited by, but also by the ability of the routers in your ISP to keep up with traffic. This is the "i" word I keep bring up: infrastructure. Building our infrastructure to the point that it can handle the theoretical peak usage is not an option. Hence, we must multiplex its use, which means it becomes finite.

The point that Sine has made, but I think is lost on some of you, is that the status-quo can not be sustained.

I work for a hosting company and we charge (a lot) for bandwidth our customers use. Now I spoke with my Networking team and bandwidth, in terms of being finite, to which they replied it is as finite as compared to sunlight. It will eventually be overwhelmed but not at the rate that Verizon, AT&T and cable companies are saying it will. The SKY is not falling, and if it is, it is because telcos didn't do what they said they were going to do and continue to upgrade the infrastructure. Instead they took the initial profits from rolling out highspeed in some areas and ran instead of reinvesting it into the infrastructure.

There are methods to upgrade the infrastructure and to keep everything status-quo, for example, 10GB fibre links that can break out to 8 different channels (80GBs of bandwidth over a single fibre line). Use the 80/20 rule and that is 64GBs of bandwidth over one peice of fibre optic cable. I can assure you that this is not what the US backbone is running.

You can go back to your geographic points but if smaller countries were able to pull this off why can't we? They aren't metering their bandwidth usage for their consumers. Saying we're too big is like saying development on a x64 bit platform is "Hard". To bad, we're moving towards it.

[Zeus]

This is my central point: we can no longer pretend that internet access is an infinite resource.

Nor can we pretend that our regulatory boards will actually protect out consumers by instilling regulations to limit the ISPs from overcharging the customer. Nor can we assume that the average customer is capable of "controlling" their internet usage. 95% of people wouldn't know how to stop programs from sending info over the 'Net or even how to check their usage the way you described. Even if they did check it, do you think they could properly assess it or do anything about it should they deem there to be an issue?

Also, we cannot pretend that this is similar to utilities in any way other than the business model you are trying to apply to it. People understand how water goes into their house and when there's a leak they can figure out a way to find it. You think that's the same with the 'Net?

What I described above are 3 very pervasive issues that need to be properly addressed before such a business model can be applied in the interest of the public. When you have a minute, take a look and try and address it if you can. It ain't so easy to ensure those issues are properly taken care of before opening up the floodgates of charge-per-GB.

[Zeus]

I think it's funny how the debate is spin as 'net neutrality' so if you're against it you're not 'neutral' and that's probably supposed to be bad.

All this thing about 'unlimited bandwidth' is rather silly. An all-you-can-eat buffet doesn't assume everyone who shows up is going to be Kobayashi, or to put things more in perspective, any fictional character who can consume an insane amount of food (Saiyans come to mind, but plenty other such examples exist). Just as all-you-can-eat is not designed to serve Saiyans, unlimited bandwidth isn't designed to serve P2P.

Hey, I've argued that endlessly but the techies here don't agree.

Let's say each ISP has an X amount of bandwith. They sell package A, B, and C to the consumer. For simplicity's sake, let's say A = X/10,000, B=X/100,000, and C=X/100,000. That bandwidth they're selling now belongs to that person, period. If I want to use my A package to its limit 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, that's my perogative (incidentally, with Primus, that's exactly what I have). I paid for it. You don't get to limit my usage of the bandwidth I paid for. It's mine. Do you limit how much of my phone line I get to use (local calls)? No, that's my portion of the line. Why are they limiting the bandwidth they sold me?

The problem is, these ISPs are starting to realize that even the most average of consumers are starting to get more and more multimedia usage out of their Internet which is overly taxing the system. Couple that with the P2P sharing they just can't stop (either technically or fear of defection; that, BTW, is why the oligopoly up here is trying to choke out the smaller guys) and all of a sudden, their original business model to profit from the capital they've invested is shot to hell. So instead of spending more on capital expenditures to increase their capacity, they're employing illegal techniques (ie. collusion) and lobbying the easily corrupted regulatory boards to artificially increase their capacity through regulation. The fact that this is in direct contrast to the reason these regulatory bodies exists (ie. do what's best for the public) doesn't seem to be a factor in their decisions.

[Zeus]

The point that Sine has made, but I think is lost on some of you, is that the status-quo can not be sustained.

I completely agree, the ISPs should not be allowed to over-sell their capacity then cry like school-girls when their "projections" are far off. They should have their nuts cut off (man, I've been using that term a lot recently; fuck we need real regulations in so many areas!) and operate in a highly-regulated environment since they obviously are unaware of how to work within their limits. You have to treat them like crack addicts who need intervention.

It would be like allowing our banks to make multi-billion dollar, retardedly high-risk loans to unstable countries like Mexico or allowing our insurance companies to collude and not pay up when they should based on their contractual obligations. Oh, hold on a sec.....

[Imakeholesinu]

I think it's funny how the debate is spin as 'net neutrality' so if you're against it you're not 'neutral' and that's probably supposed to be bad.

All this thing about 'unlimited bandwidth' is rather silly. An all-you-can-eat buffet doesn't assume everyone who shows up is going to be Kobayashi, or to put things more in perspective, any fictional character who can consume an insane amount of food (Saiyans come to mind, but plenty other such examples exist). Just as all-you-can-eat is not designed to serve Saiyans, unlimited bandwidth isn't designed to serve P2P.

Hey, I've argued that endlessly but the techies here don't agree.

Let's say each ISP has an X amount of bandwith. They sell package A, B, and C to the consumer. For simplicity's sake, let's say A = X/10,000, B=X/100,000, and C=X/100,000. That bandwidth they're selling now belongs to that person, period. If I want to use my A package to its limit 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, that's my perogative (incidentally, with Primus, that's exactly what I have). I paid for it. You don't get to limit my usage of the bandwidth I paid for. It's mine. Do you limit how much of my phone line I get to use (local calls)? No, that's my portion of the line. Why are they limiting the bandwidth they sold me?

The problem is, these ISPs are starting to realize that even the most average of consumers are starting to get more and more multimedia usage out of their Internet which is overly taxing the system. Couple that with the P2P sharing they just can't stop (either technically or fear of defection; that, BTW, is why the oligopoly up here is trying to choke out the smaller guys) and all of a sudden, their original business model to profit from the capital they've invested is shot to hell. So instead of spending more on capital expenditures to increase their capacity, they're employing illegal techniques (ie. collusion) and lobbying the easily corrupted regulatory boards to artificially increase their capacity through regulation. The fact that this is in direct contrast to the reason these regulatory bodies exists (ie. do what's best for the public) doesn't seem to be a factor in their decisions.

Zeus, you made the point I had been trying to make. Why are these fucks crying when they oversold the service they are bringing to people? They act like they aren't responsible and that it is someone elses fault when they did this on their own.

[SineSwiper]

Concerning the fact that bandwidth is a finite resource, I've said here before that I would be fine if internet access used the same pay-what-you-use model of electricity and water.

That's pretty much what the cable companies are doing with caps. (And the caps they have are rather reasonable, IMO.) They realize that yes, they offered a "unlimited service", but as bandwidth is growing faster than we can expand the pipes, it's not feasible to make it completely unlimited.

That's not to say that bandwidth for cable is as much as it will go. DOCSIS 3.0 has capabilities upwards of 343 Mbps, but it takes a long way to get that far. (We're working on it...)

The reason a lot of people are pissed off is because the way all the telcos are doing business is changing when a lot of people feel it doesn't need to.

Blame net neutrality.

They tried to traffic shape P2P. People bitched and moaned. So, they stopped doing that and started doing caps. People still bitch and moan, but at least it's not something they can go to the FCC for.

Also, I'm too far down the replies. TL;DR.

[Tessian]

Oh yes, it's all Net Neutrality's fault... just like it's the First Amendment's fault for things like Fox News and neo-nazis and terrorists. If that pesky law didn't exist they wouldn't be a problem.

You REALLY think that's the problem? That without Net Neutrality everything would be better off? There's no way ISP's could then censor the internet as they see fit for their own customers, right? Of course not, they know what's best... that model works SO well for China, Iran, and so many other countries. God you sound like such a lackey Sine.

So of course, let's "save the Internet" by letting the ISP's decide what people can and can't do on the Internet. The Free Market's never steered us wrong yet!

I'd love to hear your solution for AT&T's bandwidth issues too... or are all the iPhone users with their unlimited bandwidth plans running P2P off of them too? No carrier was able to foresee just how popular the Internet and other new technology would get, and I don't fault them for that... but don't try to blame it on a regulation that makes them play fair.

[Zeus]

Give Sine a bit of a break. When you're buried knee-deep in the industry and it's your livelihood, you're bound to have a skewed point of view. You have to do to your job.

I have a friend who's dad owns a smaller car repair garage and another who is the top service advisor in one of the biggest dealerships in Ontario. Try telling these guys that it's OK to take your car in at 8,500 KM (5,300 miles) instead of 8,000 km (or 5,000 miles) for an oil change. Or that certain "preventive" maintenance is just silly and a money grab. It took me a while (ie. years) but I finally convinced them that their point of view was far too skewed since they themselves only paid a fraction of what it costs normal human beings and that "properly scheduled maintenance" is nearly prohibitively expensive for a middle-class person with two cars. They couldn't argue with that.

It's the same with this for people who work for the companies or who's jobs are far too close to these companies that are attempting to instill these regulations which are clearly a detriment to society in general. To them, it's better if their company is on a stronger footing not to mention the internal memos/propaganda.

[SineSwiper]

Oh yes, it's all Net Neutrality's fault... just like it's the First Amendment's fault for things like Fox News and neo-nazis and terrorists. If that pesky law didn't exist they wouldn't be a problem.

What I am saying is that, for better or worse, if it wasn't for all of the crying foul over net neutrality with the P2P traffic shaping, the cable companies wouldn't have then resort to caps.

I'll admit that Comcast took it too far when they were spoofing TCP FIN packets. However, net neutrality was never about traffic shaping. It was about trying to actively block/slow web sites based on competing contracts, like slowing down Google for Microsoft, or blocking an competing ISP. Nobody big in the industry was really doing that. It was just a few isolated cases of some small-time ISPs.

Traffic shaping is a different matter. It's shaping the entire protocol, regardless of who hosts what. We still block ports, like the Microsoft network ports, so that you don't get endless spam or hacking attempts. That's not net neutrality. That's just proper network management and firewalling.

However, customer's complained about it, so the industry moved towards different methods of keeping the top 2% from using 98% of the bandwidth. So, they came up with the caps.

Give Sine a bit of a break. When you're buried knee-deep in the industry and it's your livelihood, you're bound to have a skewed point of view. You have to do to your job.

I'm not talking from a skewed point of view. I use the same internet service I work with, so I have to deal with the same bullshit. I didn't like the P2P traffic shaping, either, and I think the caps are a better solution.

I just know more about the other side than you do, while the rest of the people think that the cable companies are some evil empire with unlimited resources that they are just hoarding for themselves. I do think there is some validity with net neutrality, but both sides just want to bitch the same way, and not come to a middle ground. The FCC has been surprising fair in listening to both arguments.

[Tessian]

I actually have NO problem with Comcast's bandwidth cap. It's 250GB/month, I can't even hit 100GB if I tried. For comparison-- after streaming a Netflix movie or two, downloading 2 games, and normal internet activity... I've generated less than 30GB this month. So I'm all for reasonable bandwidth caps-- I pay enough for my internet not to have it screeching to a halt cause some dick bag down the street is downloading every show from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 250GB is at such a high cap that you HAVE to be doing something illegal in order to get anywhere near that. It's the Rogers/Bell "40GB/month" crap I heard in the past that was ridiculous.

[Zeus]

I just know more about the other side than you do, while the rest of the people think that the cable companies are some evil empire with unlimited resources that they are just hoarding for themselves. I do think there is some validity with net neutrality, but both sides just want to bitch the same way, and not come to a middle ground. The FCC has been surprising fair in listening to both arguments.

First thing's first, I do talk more about the Canadian side of things since I know more about it and it affects me more. Our issues are just like yours but magnified ten-fold because our people here are so fucking apathetic they don't care about anything.

Second, you've completely ignored my responses. I never at any point said that there wasn't a limit on the resources of a cable company. Not once. My complaints have always been with respect to the methods these companies, who control what is arguably one of most widely used, non-natural resource in the world, are using in order to basically keep up with the demand that's increasing at an astronomical rate. Rather than, say, do what every other non-predatory company does, spend capital to increase capacity and nab a greater piece of the pie. So, rather than helping the consumers out by providing more and better service, they're trying to artificially limit a resource that will take many, many, many moons before it approaches scarcity.

Third, we are not in the middle choosing between net neutrality and severe, big-brother oversight. Think of it more like the legal system where you're innocent until proven guilty and you don't choose whether someone is either. It should be complete and utter net neutrality pretty much to a fault unless you can prove otherwise. And then, any regulation that limits net neutrality to even the most minuscule degree should be severely reviewed with the sole focus of "benefit to society as a whole" as its only influence. If any small shred of regulation comes it, it should be subject to true, transparent oversight on a regular (read: yearly at least) basis to determine its validity. As a society, we need to be forced kicking and screaming into any regulation and should ALWAYS be looking to minimize it as much as possible.

Finally, in the opinion of the FCC head himself the FCC has not been open enough or "fair" enough. You may believe that they're being fair but if the people running it don't, there's something very fucking wrong

[Zeus]

I actually have NO problem with Comcast's bandwidth cap. It's 250GB/month, I can't even hit 100GB if I tried. For comparison-- after streaming a Netflix movie or two, downloading 2 games, and normal internet activity... I've generated less than 30GB this month. So I'm all for reasonable bandwidth caps-- I pay enough for my internet not to have it screeching to a halt cause some dick bag down the street is downloading every show from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 250GB is at such a high cap that you HAVE to be doing something illegal in order to get anywhere near that. It's the Rogers/Bell "40GB/month" crap I heard in the past that was ridiculous.

It's up to 60GB a month for normal use, up to 175GB if you severly overpay. And there's SEVERE per GB penalties unless you overpay

http://www.rogers.com/web/Rogers.portal ... ER_HISPEED

[Imakeholesinu]

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Ther ... ary-105574

I love this article. Independent studies always trump money hungry lobbyists.

[SineSwiper]

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Ther ... ary-105574

I love this article. Independent studies always trump money hungry lobbyists.

Talking, again, as a insider industry expert, ISPs are scared of the recent upshot of average bandwidth usage, since streaming video is getting really popular. They take that as a overall pattern of increases, and perhaps overshoot when they think is going to be the model for the next 20 years.

However, there will be increases in average speed, and I would certainly like to get a idea as to what their "modest capacity upgrades". (There was no indication of what that meant in the main report.) The report is just the other side talking. It's not exactly "independent".

DOCSIS 3.0 is not cheap, nor is it widely available yet. DOCSIS 3.0 modems aren't really mainstream, so you're back to making sure that every single modem is DOCSIS 3.0 compatible. (That depends on if you're upgrading your entire customer base, or providing a special tier.) There's a lot of hardware upgrades, and to use the main feature of DOCSIS 3.0, downstream channel bonding, requires that you need several spare 6MHz channels available (like a channel on your TV) to combine. To give you an idea, one 6MHz channel can contain one analog channel, or 12 digital channels, or 4 HD channels. Obviously, you want to get rid of as many analog channels as you can, but companies like the Big Four (NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX) don't want to force their viewership to either have a set-top box or a QAM-compatible TV. So, there's still a lot of those damn channels on the cable line.

The situation is not unique to cable companies. Phone companies have to make the leap to FioS, which is far from cheap, either.

Overall, I think the ISPs will just eat the cost and continue with the flat-rate + caps, so I don't agree that metered bandwidth is an inevitability. However, I still get their point. The article makes it sound like all they have to do is add another OC48 or something. That is simply not true at all.

[Imakeholesinu]

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Ther ... ary-105574

I love this article. Independent studies always trump money hungry lobbyists.

Talking, again, as a insider industry expert, ISPs are scared of the recent upshot of average bandwidth usage, since streaming video is getting really popular. They take that as a overall pattern of increases, and perhaps overshoot when they think is going to be the model for the next 20 years.

However, there will be increases in average speed, and I would certainly like to get a idea as to what their "modest capacity upgrades". (There was no indication of what that meant in the main report.) The report is just the other side talking. It's not exactly "independent".

DOCSIS 3.0 is not cheap, nor is it widely available yet. DOCSIS 3.0 modems aren't really mainstream, so you're back to making sure that every single modem is DOCSIS 3.0 compatible. (That depends on if you're upgrading your entire customer base, or providing a special tier.) There's a lot of hardware upgrades, and to use the main feature of DOCSIS 3.0, downstream channel bonding, requires that you need several spare 6MHz channels available (like a channel on your TV) to combine. To give you an idea, one 6MHz channel can contain one analog channel, or 12 digital channels, or 4 HD channels. Obviously, you want to get rid of as many analog channels as you can, but companies like the Big Four (NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX) don't want to force their viewership to either have a set-top box or a QAM-compatible TV. So, there's still a lot of those damn channels on the cable line.

The situation is not unique to cable companies. Phone companies have to make the leap to FioS, which is far from cheap, either.

Overall, I think the ISPs will just eat the cost and continue with the flat-rate + caps, so I don't agree that metered bandwidth is an inevitability. However, I still get their point. The article makes it sound like all they have to do is add another OC48 or something. That is simply not true at all.

My networking team and I talked about the upgrades that would have to be performed on the backbones that could allow for 16 times the amount of bandwidth to go through one line of fiber. Apparently instead of just sending information down one spectrum of light down a peice of fiber you can split it out to 8 different colors now. And then that each one of those 8 spectrums of color can be divided in half again to give you 16GB of bandwidth per 1 peice of fiber channel. Now I know this really doesn't help the cable industry but as far as the telco industry these splitters don't cost any more than the first fiber spilters when they first came out. This I know for a fact. This technology to easily upgrade the infrastructure is out there and quite honestly AT&T makes a lot of money off of my $20 a month 768K DSL. What it all boils down to is money. AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner and COX are all more concerned with profit margins than providing customers service at a decent price without limitations. The cap limitations or metered billing would just add more money in the pockets of those people who are getting fat off the land instead of investing more in their infrastructure to make it stronger and safer.

An example from the cell-phone industry is that AT&T markets itself as a 3G phone company. When Verizon Wireless started running adds to contrast against AT&T meek 3G coverage AT&T cried foul. Sure you still get Shitty edge internet everywhere else can you do anything on edge? Those huge iphone data plans must be getting carved up and sent to steve jobs and apple more than they are in R&D on AT&T's side to actually provide a service that the advertise they have. Both Sprint and AT&T tout themselves as being the fastest 3G networks around, but Verizon has way more coverage nation wide to be them both. While verizon might not be the fastest they do have the upper hand with their network.

Why can Verizon do so well without an iPhone where as Sprint and AT&T still fall behind?

[SineSwiper]

My networking team and I talked about the upgrades that would have to be performed on the backbones that could allow for 16 times the amount of bandwidth to go through one line of fiber. Apparently instead of just sending information down one spectrum of light down a peice of fiber you can split it out to 8 different colors now. And then that each one of those 8 spectrums of color can be divided in half again to give you 16GB of bandwidth per 1 peice of fiber channel.

Oh yeah, we know about fiber multiplexers. We use those for our fiber network that interconnects the headends. Though it's not exactly cheap, that part isn't the expensive part. Neither is the backbone links. (We're using Carrier Ethernet, instead of POS/SONET links, for most of our fiber network and some of our backbone links.)

The expensive part is that last mile to the customers' home. The points from the headend to the houses. That's a LOT of cable everywhere. So, at least in terms of FioS, that is the mega-expensive part. As far as cable, it's dealing with all of the video contracts to shift channel space around, the 3.0 modems and other 3.0 hardware.

Now I know this really doesn't help the cable industry but as far as the telco industry these splitters don't cost any more than the first fiber spilters when they first came out. This I know for a fact.

Well, there's labor costs involved (a lot of labor), and even when you add up all of the hardware/labor, you have to multiply it by your number of customers. If you have a 500K customers in a city, that's a lot of money to deal with.

This technology to easily upgrade the infrastructure is out there and quite honestly AT&T makes a lot of money off of my $20 a month 768K DSL. What it all boils down to is money. AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner and COX are all more concerned with profit margins than providing customers service at a decent price without limitations. The cap limitations or metered billing would just add more money in the pockets of those people who are getting fat off the land instead of investing more in their infrastructure to make it stronger and safer.

Of course they are concerned about profit margins. Though, the industry makes about a 30-35% profit, which is fairly typical for any company. That's not to say that companies like AT&T, Verizon, or Comcast aren't evil, but compare that to the profit margins of the insurance industry or those damn Santas in the mall. (I paid $32 for a fucking flash drive with one picture on it. Between the camera, Santa suit, and employees, it does not cost anywhere NEAR $32 to make that single picture.)

An example from the cell-phone industry is that AT&T markets itself as a 3G phone company. When Verizon Wireless started running adds to contrast against AT&T meek 3G coverage AT&T cried foul. Sure you still get Shitty edge internet everywhere else can you do anything on edge? Those huge iphone data plans must be getting carved up and sent to steve jobs and apple more than they are in R&D on AT&T's side to actually provide a service that the advertise they have.

Blame Apple. Before the iPhone came out, Apple approached Verizon about the iPhone, but Verizon laughed at the terms. Apple wanted full control over anything to do with the iPhone, including a ridiculous profit sharing model. Instead, AT&T buys into it, hook-line-sinker. So, Apple gets away with the profits and has a clean reputation, while AT&T gets shit on and people will leave in droves when the iPhone is non-exclusive. Fitting for the Death Star, but I hate Apple even more.

[Zeus]

See, with all of this discussion about the business aspect of "doing the impossible" as Sine put it, we're forgetting about one thing: is it not in the best interest of our society in general to ensure that such infrastructure is in place for the future? Also, if it's to the point where businesses and often people are reliant on it even if there are substitutes, then do we automatically assume that it is in the best interest?

If the answer is yes, then we need to bring in the discussion of government involvement (forget for a minute whether or not you believe it will work, just whether we need it). If not, then let the companies go wild and let the public decide.

To me, the answer to question #2 above as it relates to cellphones is almost a "yes" now and I feel that we need far more (proper) government regulation and oversight. High-speed communication is on the fast track to joining it

[Imakeholesinu]

The expensive part is that last mile to the customers' home. The points from the headend to the houses. That's a LOT of cable everywhere. So, at least in terms of FioS, that is the mega-expensive part. As far as cable, it's dealing with all of the video contracts to shift channel space around, the 3.0 modems and other 3.0 hardware.

That's understandable as most of that phone line was run 30-50 years ago or even longer when there weren't so many obstacles in neighborhoods that were non-existent when they were rolling out the infrastructure. I guess the thing that has made AT&T's U-verse so successful and profitable for the company is the fact that AT&T didn't do Fiber to the curb like Verizon has done in the NE, rather they did Fiber to the station and then copper to the home coming over the existing 4 wire phone lines. This could backfire on AT&T as Verizon would now be able to easily upgrade the multiplexers on the backend and absolutely trounce AT&T in the amount of bandwidth going to a home. AT&T seriosuly shot themselves in the foot with their network development for 3G coverage and is potentially doing the same with their u-verse rollout because it is the cheaper alternative. Now, the one thing AT&T does have going for them is that they are pretty much everywhere while Verizon is located mostly in the North East. The only Verizon data in Saint Louis is commercial high-speed for small-medium data centers.

[SineSwiper]

Yeah, there's not a lot you can do with unshielded twisted pair. At least coax cable has about 700MHz worth of space to do stuff with. If cable totally ditched their video channels, they could offer something like 2Gbps on that space. (We still have the 1G fiber for business, though.)

[Imakeholesinu]

Yeah, there's not a lot you can do with unshielded twisted pair. At least coax cable has about 700MHz worth of space to do stuff with. If cable totally ditched their video channels, they could offer something like 2Gbps on that space. (We still have the 1G fiber for business, though.)

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/The- ... ist-105809

Another excellent article about the political mouth peices these companies hire to push an agenda of higher prices and less service.

[SineSwiper]

Again, a biased article from a biased source (DSL Reports). I don't claim not to be biased myself, but at least I can talk as both a consumer and a cable company rep.

They are underestimating the last mile costs, and they use the same MINTS report, which doesn't show ANYTHING addressing the costs. However, it is true how a lot of ISPs target the bandwidth hogs, by using a top percentage. But, by the very definition, isn't that an accurate way of determining who is using the service way above average? After all, the average usage is going to be the 50th percentage, so the max users are going to be in that 95th percentage range.

or those service providers with data caps, these are usually set around 50 Gbyte and go up to 150 Gbyte a month. This is therefore a good indication of the level of bandwidth at which you start being considered a "hog". But wait: 50 Gbyte a month is… 150 kbps average (0,15 Mbps), 150 Gbyte a month is 450 kbps on average. If you have a 10 Mbps link, that’s only 1,5 % or 4,5 % of its maximum advertised speed!....

It has nothing to do with the fact that you're X percentage from the maximum advertised speed. If you were downloading 24/7 on a 10Mbps connection, that would 3 TERABYTES a month. See how I turned that percentage around?

It has everything to do with using the connection at full speed during peak times on a consistent basis. Again, the ratios are typically 4:1 or less between the bandwidth available and the max speed offered, on upstreams/downstreams that are shared by hundreds of customers.

By and large, the Exaflood, network neutrality and bandwidth hog discussions have been dominated by think tankers who make a living massaging statistics to suit the message, and focus on dressing up lobbying and public relations so it looks like real science.

Back at ya, DSL Reports.

[SineSwiper]

See, with all of this discussion about the business aspect of "doing the impossible" as Sine put it, we're forgetting about one thing: is it not in the best interest of our society in general to ensure that such infrastructure is in place for the future? Also, if it's to the point where businesses and often people are reliant on it even if there are substitutes, then do we automatically assume that it is in the best interest?

If the answer is yes, then we need to bring in the discussion of government involvement (forget for a minute whether or not you believe it will work, just whether we need it). If not, then let the companies go wild and let the public decide.

There is a section of the "main street" stimulus bill that talks about expanding broadband into rural areas with some free money to help build the infrastructure, but I think there were still talks from the FCC and broadband companies about a definition of terms (like "What is 'broadband' and 'rural'?") before they started on that.

Good article on it here.

[Imakeholesinu]

See, with all of this discussion about the business aspect of "doing the impossible" as Sine put it, we're forgetting about one thing: is it not in the best interest of our society in general to ensure that such infrastructure is in place for the future? Also, if it's to the point where businesses and often people are reliant on it even if there are substitutes, then do we automatically assume that it is in the best interest?

If the answer is yes, then we need to bring in the discussion of government involvement (forget for a minute whether or not you believe it will work, just whether we need it). If not, then let the companies go wild and let the public decide.

There is a section of the "main street" stimulus bill that talks about expanding broadband into rural areas with some free money to help build the infrastructure, but I think there were still talks from the FCC and broadband companies about a definition of terms (like "What is 'broadband' and 'rural'?") before they started on that.

Good article on it here.

One of the towns over on the other side of the river here over in Illinois passed a bill to start running their own fiber in town. Not sure if they are using some of those funds as it is about 30-40 miles away from a major metro area (Saint Louis).

[Zeus]

See, with all of this discussion about the business aspect of "doing the impossible" as Sine put it, we're forgetting about one thing: is it not in the best interest of our society in general to ensure that such infrastructure is in place for the future? Also, if it's to the point where businesses and often people are reliant on it even if there are substitutes, then do we automatically assume that it is in the best interest?

If the answer is yes, then we need to bring in the discussion of government involvement (forget for a minute whether or not you believe it will work, just whether we need it). If not, then let the companies go wild and let the public decide.

There is a section of the "main street" stimulus bill that talks about expanding broadband into rural areas with some free money to help build the infrastructure, but I think there were still talks from the FCC and broadband companies about a definition of terms (like "What is 'broadband' and 'rural'?") before they started on that.

Good article on it here.

Ok, so it's rather obvious that the US government has answered "yes" and that broadband internet is being viewed as basically an "essential service" if not now than in the near future. If that's the case, we do not let the companies go hog wild and do what they want. We regulate the industry to ensure that it's always acting in the best interest of the public. Are we doing that? With all the recent developments with the CRTC, I can absolutely promise you that's not the case up here in Canada.

[SineSwiper]

Ok, so it's rather obvious that the US government has answered "yes" and that broadband internet is being viewed as basically an "essential service" if not now than in the near future. If that's the case, we do not let the companies go hog wild and do what they want. We regulate the industry to ensure that it's always acting in the best interest of the public. Are we doing that? With all the recent developments with the CRTC, I can absolutely promise you that's not the case up here in Canada.

Quit confusing your country with mine. We are not the United States of Canada, nor do we have exactly one broadband provider in the country. The US actually has competition for broadband: cable, DSL, FioS, satellite (*snicker*).

[Zeus]

Quit confusing your country with mine. We are not the United States of Canada, nor do we have exactly one broadband provider in the country. The US actually has competition for broadband: cable, DSL, FioS, satellite (*snicker*).

This is why I've asked you if you think that the US is actually regulating the industry to the point where they are keeping the best interest of the public in mind. I know for a fact up here we're regressing but I don't really know what's going on down there