Nothin' but [NET NEUTRALITY]
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So, the 95 candidates who pledged support for net neutrality lost on Tuesday: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/all-95-candidates-who-pledged-support-for-net-neutrality-lost-on-tuesday.php
Does this spell doom for the net neutrality movement? Is the internet doomed to a tiered access pricing model? Penny-Arcade.com for twenty bucks a month?
Another article: http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2010/11/will-the-next-congress-cooperate-on-internet-privacy-issues.ars
For the unfamiliar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality
Does this spell doom for the net neutrality movement? Is the internet doomed to a tiered access pricing model? Penny-Arcade.com for twenty bucks a month?
Another article: http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2010/11/will-the-next-congress-cooperate-on-internet-privacy-issues.ars
For the unfamiliar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality
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People have it. People like it. Taking away things people like tends to end badly. I think there's far more noise about this issue than actual action. The only actual instance of non-neutrality so far was some modest throttling on P2P clients, which isn't something I'm going to get up in arms about.
I'm not saying some dumb overreaching ISP won't try to do something stupid, but I think in the grand scheme of things most ISPs are going to be very happy to be completely uninvolved in what their subscribers look at. Once you change that relationship you could start some very unpleasant discussions about the obligations of an ISP to police the internet.
Regardless, the headline is misleading, which is a shame because I normally enjoy TPM. Shame on them for something so blatantly dishonest.
Edit:
A lot of money are being spent to make it a reality.
Imagine moderating an internet forum. Hateful, thankless work.
OK now remove the forum part.
Anyways, like I said I don't appreciate the fearmongering in the linked article and generally think this issue is somewhat moot anyways.
Now net neutrality on wireless devices and phones, that's where the money is going and that's something that will probably end very differently.
Of course, eventually everyone will be using the system our phones use now for all internet. Cabled net to your average home is going to become as uncommon as a cabled phone line.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement-concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Is this related to the netflix thing too? I've also heard they plan to throttle netflix streamers like they do with p2p clients, and last night I had to try about three times to get netflix to work on my 360, but those two things could obviously be unrelated.
I'm also not able to get ESPN3 content on my 360 even though I have comcast because of Xfinity and my local pipeline.
Hello U-Verse, here I come.
If this moves forward, I think we're out.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Edit: Also, I'm really not sure what to think of that story as it just sounds as if l3's peering with comcast's network was so heavily unbalanced that they decided to start charging. We need more details on this.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Packets are packets. In the end, it should not matter what they contain, who sent them, or who is receiving them.
Actually, increased traffic is exactly what Comcast is claiming. It's looking like Level 3 is using net neutrality proponents to evade legitimate charges.
What? The bandwidth usage Comcast is complaining about is the bandwidth they are selling to their customers. The customers are the ones who pay for that bandwidth; not third party content providers. This is a textbook example of a network neutrality violation.
You have no clue how a peering agreement works, do you?
Either you don't exactly understand what getting rid of NN would mean or your citing a bad example. Ending NN doesn't necessarily mean end users have to pay to play. Maintaining NN almost ensures that EVERYONE's monthly bills will increase though.
Thing is, Comcast is already planning on a lot more traffic coming in than going out. There's a reason your upload speed is about 1/10th of your download speed.
However, yea, I question whether this is a net neutrality thing. It may be... there's certainly a conflict of interest considering Netflix is part of this. But this should probably be its own thread rather than part of the Net Neutrality one.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
And how, pray-tell, would *that* work?
Does Comcast carry traffic from L3 exclusively for their end users? Or would it be possible that some portion of L3's traffic through Comcast (including Netflix traffic) would be to non-Comcast users (merely data in transit)? If the former, then yeah this is bullshit. If the latter, then Comcast may have a legitimate claim.
And these new charges are content-agnostic. They're being brought on by L3's Netflix agreement, but the charges will be on all packets...Comcast is just assuming (rightly) that the number of packets from L3 is going to climb considerably.
Simple economics. If NN remains then those who user low QOS protocols will have to subsidize those who use high QOS. This will occur since the carriers cannot discriminate between packet priority since it's indeed invisible. Their options are then to either deploy outlays that have to accommodate high QOS which effectively raises rates for everyone OR choose not to do that which degrades service for anything high QOS.
What NN is proposing is that in order for cutting edge packet delivery priority to exist the entire delivery system must be revamped and upgraded to accommodate, even if 80% of the people using it don't need that. That's horribly inefficient but will be forced to happen by government decree, driving costs upward further. People who read this site will effectively be subsidizing WOW or Netflix or whatever the next great thing is.
It's pretty much this. We're not talking about the last mile here, but the data communications between the major nodes that make up the Internet's backbone. Comcast is requiring Level3 to pay up because they're pushing more data in toto through Comcast's network.
More info on the matter.
The only issue I have is that neither that article nor any other I've seen seems to address the issue of Comcast's end users. What portion of this new traffic load is data that is eventually being delivered to Comcast customers? Because if, say, 80% of this new traffic is going to Comcast's subscribers, then wouldn't Comcast have had to haul that traffic anyway?
I guess it's just not clear to me where the line between Comcast's wider network and Comcast's end-user delivery network sits here. I can see how this could fall either way; either Comcast is being perfectly reasonable, or abusing their position to strangle competition.
I mean, they clearly have at least some conflict of interest here. So I guess I'm not willing to take anything Comcast says at face value either.
But no, it's not clear to me that this isn't just a political stunt from L3. And a clever one, if so.
L3 said specifically that this was over traffic delivered to Comcast customers. Allowing the possiblity that that is only half the story, I would expect Comcast to fill in the half where they are also flooding their network with through traffic destined for other ISPs.
From Comcast's blog
"Delivered onto our network" is as clearly as they seem to describe the disputed behavior. If this were a case of L3 serving data through Comcast, rather than to them, I would expect them to state it more clearly.
To me this sounds like Comcast is trying to put the squeeze on Netflix; but rather than shake them down directly, they are attacking their service provider.
It seems pretty in character for them.
So, you're viewing Comcast with skepticism, but treating Level3 with credulity?
Even when Level3 pulled this exact stunt a few years back?
I think you should read what the industry analysts are saying (hint: none of them are viewing this as a net neutrality issue.)
Edit: And they are stating it clearly. Level3 is delivering more data to Comcast, period.
Eh? I'm taking L3 and Comcasts statements at face value. There are two possible situations here:
L3 "delivering more data to Comcast" because Comcast users are requesting more data from L3 is not L3's fault. It's the cost of Comcast providing a service to it's customers. Demanding that L3 pay them an additional fee for using up bandwidth, bandwidth that was already allocated to their customers for this purpose, is shady behavior.
or
L3 is delivering data through Comcast to third party ISPs running off of a Comcast backbone. This could be seen as L3 abusing Comcast.
[Edit]
L3 explicitly claims the former. Comcast does not exlicitly claim the latter. I expect companies to claim things that paint them in the best light possible without outright lying. Based on Comcast's statment, and it's failure to underscore a distinction similar to the latter situation (relying instead on data volume ratios), it sounds like the former situation is more likely to be true.
In a speech he plans to give Wednesday in Washington, Julius Genachowski, the F.C.C. chairman, will outline a framework for broadband Internet service that forbids both wired and wireless Internet service providers from blocking lawful content. But the proposal would allow broadband providers to charge consumers different rates for different levels of service, according to a text of the speech provided to The New York Times.
Mr. Genachowski has decided not to use the commission’s telephone regulatory powers to govern broadband Internet service, a move that he proposed in May that would potentially open Internet service to heavier government regulation.
His proposal would also allow broadband providers to manage their networks to limit congestion or harmful traffic.
The framework will form the basis for a proposed order scheduled to be voted on during the F.C.C.’s Dec. 21 meeting.
Mr. Genachowski says he believes he has the legal authority to act because he argues that his plan would help spread broadband service more widely across the country, a priority that Congress has established as one of the F.C.C.’s mandates. It is not clear whether the latest proposal will garner the support of the majority of the five-person commission.
While he has a fair chance of securing the votes of the two other Democrats, he faces a potential fight with one of those commissioners, Michael J. Copps, who has been public in his support for stricter regulation of broadband Internet service.
Mr. Genachowski will also face significant opposition from Republicans in the House of Representatives, who last month warned against attempts to regulate broadband service and the Internet.
The chairman intends to say that he believes the proposal is necessary to guarantee that the Internet continues to provide an incubator for innovation by start-up companies. “Broadband providers have natural business incentives to leverage their position as gatekeepers to the Internet,” the text of the speech says. “The record in the proceeding we’ve run over the past year, as well as history, shows that there are real risks to the Internet’s continued freedom and openness.”
The proposal will allow broadband companies to impose usage-based pricing, charging customers higher prices if they make heavy use of data-rich applications like streaming movies. Users who use the Internet only to check e-mail, for example, could be charged lower prices for using less data.
The F.C.C. also will allow companies to experiment with the offering of so-called specialized services, providing separate highways outside the public Internet for specific uses like medical services or home security.
But companies will be required to justify why those services will not be provided over the open Internet and to demonstrate that their implementation does not detract from a company’s investment in the more widely used open Internet infrastructure.
As for broadband service delivered over wires, providers to homes or offices will be prohibited from blocking lawful content, applications, services and the connection of nonharmful devices to the network.
The companies also will be subject to transparency requirements as to how their networks are managed.
For wireless broadband, the fastest-growing segment of the industry, the proposal includes a transparency requirement and “a basic no-blocking rule” covering Web sites and certain applications that compete with services that the broadband provider also offers.
But Mr. Genachowski says he recognizes “differences between fixed and mobile broadband,” and therefore will allow for flexibility for wireless rules. But he said he planned to “address anticompetitive or anticonsumer behavior as appropriate.”
The issue of an open Internet, or net neutrality, dates to at least September 2005, when the F.C.C. unanimously voted to classify Internet access service as an “information service” subject only to regulation under powers previously given by Congress to the F.C.C. That kept it out of the more-regulated category of “telecommunications services,” which, like telephone service, are subject to rate review and other regulation by the commission.
At the same time, the commission adopted an Internet Policy Statement that set out principles for an open Internet and expressed its view that it had the jurisdiction necessary to ensure that providers of Internet access operated their services in a neutral manner, not discriminating on the basis of content.
In 2008, the F.C.C. issued a finding that Comcast had violated federal Internet policy when it secretly blocked or slowed down the transmission by its customers of information via BitTorrent, a so-called peer-to-peer service that allows users to share large files.
Comcast challenged the F.C.C.’s order, claiming that the commission lacked the authority to regulate how it managed its Internet service because doing so was not ancillary to any legal authority given to the commission by Congress.
In April, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in Comcast’s favor, saying that the F.C.C. lacked the authority to enforce nondiscrimination principles over an information service.
Since that ruling, the commission’s authority to regulate broadband service has been uncertain and hotly debated.
This two are my favorites. So, not only is Comcast allowed to price consumers out of competing services, but apparently allowing even that is entirely too much regulation.
Are we sure it's bandwidth based and not "LOL TIERS BASED ON 'CONTENT'" based?
Since this got skipped: QOS is not what Net Neutrality is about. ISPs are free to implement QOS all they want. NN is about ISPs charging other service providers (say, Comcast charging Skype) to allow their QOS through.
Combine this with the major ISPs also being content delivery providers (OnDemand, their VOIP services) and you wind up with what's essentially an extortion racket. Comcast's services are awesome for comcast users, due to QOS. So netflix, in order to compete with OnDemand, you need to pay a bit to Comcast so they let you play on the same level as OnDemand.
Cost to the consumer wise: NN stays: ISPs continue to raise monthly rates because they have been overselling capacity for decades in the US in order to give us cheap unlimited bandwidth access.
NN goes away: ISPs probably still slowly raise rates (seriously, comcast has been doing this forever, it's like a cost of living adjustment for your cable modem), and every internet service (not website, service) winds up costing more due to the fees they have to pay every major ISP to play.
It's not extortion it's efficiency. If they can't see the packets and they cannot discriminate then they can't effectively do QOS. If they can't do QOS then text has the same exact priority as video. This results in two scenarios 1) Video delivery is inadequate 2) They have to build out a bleeding edge network to deliver text. Scenario one means that quality suffers and scenario two means that efficiency suffers, resulting in higher user fees across the board.
If Netflix has to pay Comcast for QOS, but OnDemand does not, netflix cannot effectively compete with OnDemand.
It's trivial and not an issue for the ISPs to QOS everything the same. VOIP is latency sensitive, if all VOIP packets get QOS'd up, good. Video slightly less so, but same idea. Net Neutrality is not a debate over "can you use QOS", it's a debate over "can you QOS based on sender instead of service type"
Do you agree it would be extortion for Comcast to QOS it's video streaming service, but charge for QOS to a competing video streaming service? Essentially that's what the ISPs are after: the ability to get a bit of cash out of this whole streaming internet thing. Because they're not getting shit as is, since we all have unlimited bandwidth plans in the US. Johnny checks his email is paying the same and has the same as Jane who really loves her some Hulu. Killing NN is the way to get Jane's usage to be more profitable: make Hulu pay for her extra usage.
The statements from, I think the owners of Comcast? Have been very telling on this matter. When you're posing the rhetorical question "why should they get to use my pipes for free?" in the context of commercial enterprise on the internet, it's clear you're not interested in just uniformly applying QoS or shaping to network traffic.
In this case? Level 3 are being complete dicks and trying to use NN as a rallying cry for them being dicks. They're trying to keep an unfair contract, and Comcast had enough of it.
It has nothing to do with NN, it's simply a volume of data thing.