Net Neutrality in Danger?

[JonA]

Proof we can manage Internet 'traffic' without the world exploding...

Or maybe we need 'highway neutrality'?

 

[Deepak]

But you aren't paying for bandwidth to Netflix. You are paying for the bandwidth from your house to the local ISP.

Which ISPs charge "for the bandwidth"?

FFS! People aren't saying that data should be flung into the intertubes and anarchy should prevail.

We are arguing that ISPs which are monopoly-ish shouldn't be able to hijack streams from third parties in order to extort money from them. You folks are arguing that ISPs should be allowed to prevent DoS attacks as some sort of rebuttal.

But that was what Netflix traffic was doing at choke points in the network between providers.

Proof we can manage Internet 'traffic' without the world exploding...

Or maybe we need 'highway neutrality'?

Every ISP I know charges for bandwidth - some may have additional data caps, especially on mobile devices, but they all charge by bandwidth. And Netflix isn't choking anything as Netflix is not delivering any traffic onto the ISP networks that their own customers aren't requesting. The fundamental problem is with the ISPs inability to manage their pricing model, and I fail to see how that's Netflix (or any other content provider's problem). The ISPs sold access for 30 ton trucks and realized their highways can only support all of their customers driving 10 ton trucks.

What you're advocating is like UPS charging Amazon and the customer for the same package. The content providers already pay for access and CDN networks to maintain high availability - the ISPs just want to charge them a shitload of dimes for the delivery of that content over the network they're charging their customers for. Where your analogy is on the mark is that freight is, like internet access should be, a common carrier.

 

[JonA]

And Netflix isn't choking anything as Netflix is not delivering any traffic onto the ISP networks that their own customers aren't requesting.

That's a pretty slimy position to take. Netflix profits from its use of the Internet and from everyone else's easy access to it.

The ISPs sold access for 30 ton trucks and realized their highways can only support all of their customers driving 10 ton trucks.

A not uncommon problem. Failure to foresee the popularity of a novel product is nothing new and not restricted to ISPs.

What do you believe to be the best way to deal with this?

Where your analogy is on the mark is that freight is, like internet access should be, a common carrier.

Even further on mark given that commercial traffic is charged more for access to the same roads as non-commercial traffic.

World still in one piece.

Go figure.

 

[Deepak]

That's a pretty slimy position to take. Netflix profits from its use of the Internet and from everyone else's easy access to it.

The most bizarre definition of slimy I've ever heard. Netflix profits from the content it makes available to consumers, and the internet is the delivery mechanism. They've payed to transport the packets from their CDN servers through the trunk lines and the ISPs are whining that they want to be payed for content their customers are requesting. Slimy is the ISPs portraying themselves as the victim when they're really trying to double dip on internet access sales to their customers also being turned about on content creators. The endpoint network that's managed by residential ISPs is effectively worthless as a product if they're not connecting to the broader internet.

The ISPs sold access for 30 ton trucks and realized their highways can only support all of their customers driving 10 ton trucks.

A not uncommon problem. Failure to foresee the popularity of a novel product is nothing new and not restricted to ISPs.

What do you believe to be the best way to deal with this?

It's actually pretty uncommon for most businesses to operate at a (purported) loss and try charging people other than their customers to recoup that. The garage door opener company doesn't get to shake down BMW because they don't make enough per installed unit to turn a profit.

If they wanted to fix it they could stop increasing the bandwidth year-over-year if this truly is a real problem. I was actually just chatting last week with a coworker who told me she had to renew with Comcast and it would be cheaper for her to upgrade to a 50/50 connection rather than stay with her current lower bandwidth plan. If they're counting on X% of their customers underutilizing what they're selling then they had better get their models right, because that's entirely a problem of their own creation.

Where your analogy is on the mark is that freight is, like internet access should be, a common carrier.

Even further on mark given that commercial traffic is charged more for access to the same roads as non-commercial traffic.

World still in one piece.

Go figure.

There's no residential vs commercial traffic in the case of residential ISPs. All traffic whether it's torrents, video streaming, or gaming is hopping outside of the residential ISP private net. Let's see how many 75/75 plans these guys sell if the only thing you can use their networks for is Comcast-to-Comcast, or Verizon-to-Verizon, or Cox-to-Cox email

The only load on their network is from content their customers request. Netflix traffic isn't going to flow through the Comcast network to hit a Verizon stream viewer or vice versa because their entire network is only set up to service leaf nodes.

 

[JonA]

ISPs are whining that they want to be payed for content their customers are requesting.

They want to be paid in line with what it costs them to maintain and develop the network infrastructure and have decided - like software companies and like state licensing bureaus and DoTs - that a larger share of those payments should come from those whose use is the heaviest, most demanding, and most profitable.

Piping seamless HD Netflix videos into 9 of 10 houses on every block costs money.

Who should pay for that?

It's a simple question to answer.

If they're counting on X% of their customers underutilizing what they're selling then they had better get their models right, because that's entirely a problem of their own creation.

It's not a problem at all. The costs of installing and maintaining the infrastructure passes to the consumer. It would be irresponsible to install more than is needed and then charge the consumer for that extra that they don't get any benefit from.

It would also be a losing business model.

There's no residential vs commercial traffic in the case of residential ISPs. All traffic whether it's torrents, video streaming, or gaming is hopping outside of the residential ISP private net. Let's see how many 75/75 plans these guys sell if the only thing you can use their networks for is Comcast-to-Comcast, or Verizon-to-Verizon, or Cox-to-Cox email

The only load on their network is from content their customers request. Netflix traffic isn't going to flow through the Comcast network to hit a Verizon stream viewer or vice versa because their entire network is only set up to service leaf nodes.

You might as well say there's no commercial traffic on the highway because it is consumer demand that leads Wal-Mart to put all those semi-trucks on the road.

 

[Deepak]

They want to be paid in line with what it costs them to maintain and develop the network infrastructure and have decided - like software companies and like state licensing bureaus and DoTs - that a larger share of those payments should come from those whose use is the heaviest, most demanding, and most profitable.

Piping seamless HD Netflix videos into 9 of 10 houses on every block costs money.

Who should pay for that?

It's a simple question to answer.

If they're counting on X% of their customers underutilizing what they're selling then they had better get their models right, because that's entirely a problem of their own creation.

It's not a problem at all. The costs of installing and maintaining the infrastructure passes to the consumer. It would be irresponsible to install more than is needed and then charge the consumer for that extra that they don't get any benefit from.

It would also be a losing business model.

There's no residential vs commercial traffic in the case of residential ISPs. All traffic whether it's torrents, video streaming, or gaming is hopping outside of the residential ISP private net. Let's see how many 75/75 plans these guys sell if the only thing you can use their networks for is Comcast-to-Comcast, or Verizon-to-Verizon, or Cox-to-Cox email

The only load on their network is from content their customers request. Netflix traffic isn't going to flow through the Comcast network to hit a Verizon stream viewer or vice versa because their entire network is only set up to service leaf nodes.

Why are residential ISPs so incapable of doing something that plenty of mobile providers and other companies are able to do? Why are they so incapable of supporting what they sell, or alternately selling what they can support?

Lemme guess - you're one of those small government free market conservatives...

You might as well say there's no commercial traffic on the highway because it is consumer demand that leads Wal-Mart to put all those semi-trucks on the road.

Anyone might as well say anything if they don't understand how packet switching networks work.

 

[ksen]

I said no. You understand what No means, it answered your question.

Nope. I'm not required to pay for a person receiving a phone call I am making. They pay to receive, I pay to send, I do not pay for them to receive.

The MA Bells didn't use that pricing for phone calls, but cell phone companies did. But it's not the content that they care about. The MA bells try to solve it in a different way and still some cell plans solve it that way too. Do you know what they did? And another issue, TCP has a different mechanism that it makes it different than a standard phone call.

Lots of talk for, "I think that monopolies should exert whatever pressure on the market they feel entitled to."

No, we're talking about how to price congestion. MA bells did it by charging more per minute than during low volume times.

What congestion? Have you forgotten the last net neutrality thread where I posted, to you, proof that the claimed congestion by companies like Comcast was a bald-faced lie?

 

[ksen]

I'm curious, what in the heck am I paying AT&T for, if Netflix should be paying AT&T to unload their content across the AT&T network?

You are paying for some of it, but you are paying for the access to everything, not just access to one site. And more bandwidth pays for better performance overall, but it's not a guarantee for any specific site.

Especially if that specific site is being purposefully throttled in order to extort more money out of it.

 

[ksen]

FFS! People aren't saying that data should be flung into the intertubes and anarchy should prevail.

We are arguing that ISPs which are monopoly-ish shouldn't be able to hijack streams from third parties in order to extort money from them. You folks are arguing that ISPs should be allowed to prevent DoS attacks as some sort of rebuttal.

But that was what Netflix traffic was doing at choke points in the network between providers.

No, it wasn't as has been pointed out to you numerous times.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Sorry for being off topic for a moment but this is a decent opportunity to mention something I think is extremely important. If it is possible to block things from particular net users, it SHOULD be done. Particularly in the case of children. An internet for kids only. That is what I'm talking about.

Adult internet should only be available to devices registered to adults. It would be very hard to determine who is using what, but they should at least try to start splitting things. Making it look like we're trying is almost as important as actually trying. It will take decades to make a kid-friendly internet, so people should fain interest soon. Things need to get going on this.

Growing up with adult internet is messing kids up in the head. Kids don't need this. Don't you think they deserve something separate? What are your thoughts?

We filter (censor) the external stimuli to our children as best we can. This has always been a difficult task. The internet has made it near impossible. Just as a baby will inevitably cry from being passed around from one loving family member to another at a social gathering, just as a soldier will suffer from PTSD from close engagement with war, the quantity and content of what children experience on the internet should be filtered.

Is there evidence the internet is fucking our children up? I think the proper question is do we want children to be the test subjects in answering this question. We should want to raise emotionally intelligent children. That little genius will hardly be a value to society if he cannot bring himself to leave mom's basement.

Disagree. Children generally stay away from what they aren't interested in on their own.

While I grew up before the internet I grew up in a house with zero censorship. I had access to a college library from age 10 on, although for a few years there were some practical limits on getting to it. From the point the road was improved so I could safely reach it by bike my access was completely unrestricted. There were adult materials in there, I read some of them. I don't believe I was harmed in the slightest.

A child needs guidance about the actions of bad guys on the net, not censorship--basically the same thing as I would say for someone of any age learning about the web.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I said no. You understand what No means, it answered your question.

Nope. I'm not required to pay for a person receiving a phone call I am making. They pay to receive, I pay to send, I do not pay for them to receive.

The MA Bells didn't use that pricing for phone calls, but cell phone companies did. But it's not the content that they care about. The MA bells try to solve it in a different way and still some cell plans solve it that way too. Do you know what they did? And another issue, TCP has a different mechanism that it makes it different than a standard phone call.

Lots of talk for, "I think that monopolies should exert whatever pressure on the market they feel entitled to."

No, we're talking about how to price congestion. MA bells did it by charging more per minute than during low volume times.

And I would have no problem with this. If we are to have data caps (and I'm not at all convinced there is any economic justification here) they should be based on actual load. Count the bytes only when the load is above say 50% of capacity.

 

[JonA]

They want to be paid in line with what it costs them to maintain and develop the network infrastructure and have decided - like software companies and like state licensing bureaus and DoTs - that a larger share of those payments should come from those whose use is the heaviest, most demanding, and most profitable.

Piping seamless HD Netflix videos into 9 of 10 houses on every block costs money.

Who should pay for that?

It's a simple question to answer.



It's not a problem at all. The costs of installing and maintaining the infrastructure passes to the consumer. It would be irresponsible to install more than is needed and then charge the consumer for that extra that they don't get any benefit from.

It would also be a losing business model.

There's no residential vs commercial traffic in the case of residential ISPs. All traffic whether it's torrents, video streaming, or gaming is hopping outside of the residential ISP private net. Let's see how many 75/75 plans these guys sell if the only thing you can use their networks for is Comcast-to-Comcast, or Verizon-to-Verizon, or Cox-to-Cox email

The only load on their network is from content their customers request. Netflix traffic isn't going to flow through the Comcast network to hit a Verizon stream viewer or vice versa because their entire network is only set up to service leaf nodes.

Why are residential ISPs so incapable of doing something that plenty of mobile providers and other companies are able to do? Why are they so incapable of supporting what they sell, or alternately selling what they can support?

You didn't answer the questions I asked.

Building and maintaining networks that can handle stuff like Netflix and Hulu streaming costs a lot more money than building networks that do not have to cope with such traffic.

So who should pay for that?

It's a simple question to answer.

Lemme guess - you're one of those small government free market conservatives...

No. I am not. A serious fail and completely irrelevant.

You might as well say there's no commercial traffic on the highway because it is consumer demand that leads Wal-Mart to put all those semi-trucks on the road.

Anyone might as well say anything if they don't understand how packet switching networks work.

That doesn't address my point at all.

 

[coloradoatheist]

I said no. You understand what No means, it answered your question.

Nope. I'm not required to pay for a person receiving a phone call I am making. They pay to receive, I pay to send, I do not pay for them to receive.

The MA Bells didn't use that pricing for phone calls, but cell phone companies did. But it's not the content that they care about. The MA bells try to solve it in a different way and still some cell plans solve it that way too. Do you know what they did? And another issue, TCP has a different mechanism that it makes it different than a standard phone call.

Lots of talk for, "I think that monopolies should exert whatever pressure on the market they feel entitled to."

No, we're talking about how to price congestion. MA bells did it by charging more per minute than during low volume times.

And I would have no problem with this. If we are to have data caps (and I'm not at all convinced there is any economic justification here) they should be based on actual load. Count the bytes only when the load is above say 50% of capacity.

Are you going back to time usage charging like the phone companies did? The issue is consumer knowledge. It's easy to know how many minutes you are talking on the phone at night, it's much harder for someone to know how many bytes an application is downloading. For example, what's the bandwidth of this site? Tech people can find, ordinary users no.

- - - Updated - - -

I said no. You understand what No means, it answered your question.

Nope. I'm not required to pay for a person receiving a phone call I am making. They pay to receive, I pay to send, I do not pay for them to receive.

The MA Bells didn't use that pricing for phone calls, but cell phone companies did. But it's not the content that they care about. The MA bells try to solve it in a different way and still some cell plans solve it that way too. Do you know what they did? And another issue, TCP has a different mechanism that it makes it different than a standard phone call.

Lots of talk for, "I think that monopolies should exert whatever pressure on the market they feel entitled to."

No, we're talking about how to price congestion. MA bells did it by charging more per minute than during low volume times.

What congestion? Have you forgotten the last net neutrality thread where I posted, to you, proof that the claimed congestion by companies like Comcast was a bald-faced lie?

There was congestion on the peer links one multiple ISPs going to Cogent and Level 3. That congestion was also blocking other transactions from occuring so the solution that the companies came up with when they started experiencing all these other problems was to limit traffic.

 

[coloradoatheist]

It's interesting, because cable and newspapers have always double dipped with the pricing model. They get some of their revenue from subscribers, and the other avenue from their advertisers. So should advertisers complain about having to pay cable companies to advertise?

 

[HelixSpiral]

It's interesting, because cable and newspapers have always double dipped with the pricing model. They get some of their revenue from subscribers, and the other avenue from their advertisers. So should advertisers complain about having to pay cable companies to advertise?

I'm confused. Are you under the impression that Netflix et al. currently don't have to pay to upload data?

 

[coloradoatheist]

It's interesting, because cable and newspapers have always double dipped with the pricing model. They get some of their revenue from subscribers, and the other avenue from their advertisers. So should advertisers complain about having to pay cable companies to advertise?

I'm confused. Are you under the impression that Netflix et al. currently don't have to pay to upload data?

Right now Netflix pays for circuits directly to those providers instead of paying Cogent who didn't have enough bandwidth with the providers.

 

[Deepak]

You didn't answer the questions I asked.

Building and maintaining networks that can handle stuff like Netflix and Hulu streaming costs a lot more money than building networks that do not have to cope with such traffic.

So who should pay for that?

It's a simple question to answer.

I did answer your question - you just seem unwilling to accept the answer. The ISPs should sell services they can support and any investment is on them. All traffic in a packet switching network is demand driven, there's no warehousing of packets on the Comcast network or peerage considerations since they don't serve as a trunk.

For context: http://techblog.netflix.com/2015/12/per-title-encode-optimization.html

For pricing I checked Comcast at: http://www.xfinity.com/internet-service.html

Which lists 10Mbps as the minimum (priced $49) and they're incentivizing 25Mbps and 75Mbps pricing with contracts at $39.99 and $49 respectively. That's plenty of bandwidth to support uncompressed video from Netflix (or Hulu) - and that's not considering the ability to apply additional compression on the video stream. Colour me unimpressed by the kvetching about load. The top tier is a whopping 2Gbps. Verizon and Cox have similar pricing.

Mind you most of the ISPs operate as monopolies or duopolies - if they're unwilling to invest in their networks they should renegotiate their status, opening markets up to competition, rather than asking for their cake and eating it too.

That doesn't address my point at all.

It did address your point - your analogy is bad and you should feel bad. Anyone who understands how the internet works can see this. Even Ted Stevens said so:

And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck.

 

[JonA]

I did answer your question - you just seem unwilling to accept the answer. The ISPs should sell services they can support and any investment is on them. All traffic in a packet switching network is demand driven, there's no warehousing of packets on the Comcast network or peerage considerations since they don't serve as a trunk.

For context: http://techblog.netflix.com/2015/12/per-title-encode-optimization.html

For pricing I checked Comcast at: http://www.xfinity.com/internet-service.html

Which lists 10Mbps as the minimum (priced $49) and they're incentivizing 25Mbps and 75Mbps pricing with contracts at $39.99 and $49 respectively. That's plenty of bandwidth to support uncompressed video from Netflix (or Hulu) - and that's not considering the ability to apply additional compression on the video stream. Colour me unimpressed by the kvetching about load. The top tier is a whopping 2Gbps. Verizon and Cox have similar pricing.

Mind you most of the ISPs operate as monopolies or duopolies - if they're unwilling to invest in their networks they should renegotiate their status, opening markets up to competition, rather than asking for their cake and eating it too.

A lot of words - still no answer.

When it costs $X to run a network that can't handle Netflix traffic and $X+Y to run a network that can, who should pay the $Y?

Be specific and stop dodging.

That doesn't address my point at all.

It did address your point - your analogy is bad and you should feel bad. Anyone who understands how the internet works can see this. Even Ted Stevens said so:

And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck.

Good thing I never compared the Internet to a 'big truck', then.

I'd hate to have to feel bad about myself.

 

[ksen]

A lot of words - still no answer.

When it costs $X to run a network that can't handle Netflix traffic and $X+Y to run a network that can, who should pay the $Y?

Be specific and stop dodging.

That doesn't address my point at all.

It did address your point - your analogy is bad and you should feel bad. Anyone who understands how the internet works can see this. Even Ted Stevens said so:

And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck.

Good thing I never compared the Internet to a 'big truck', then.

I'd hate to have to feel bad about myself.

Their networks can handle Netflix. The problem was that companies like Comcast were purposefully throttling Netflix for business purposes, not network traffic purposes.

 

[coloradoatheist]

A lot of words - still no answer.

When it costs $X to run a network that can't handle Netflix traffic and $X+Y to run a network that can, who should pay the $Y?

Be specific and stop dodging.

That doesn't address my point at all.

It did address your point - your analogy is bad and you should feel bad. Anyone who understands how the internet works can see this. Even Ted Stevens said so:

And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck.

Good thing I never compared the Internet to a 'big truck', then.

I'd hate to have to feel bad about myself.

Their networks can handle Netflix. The problem was that companies like Comcast were purposefully throttling Netflix for business purposes, not network traffic purposes.

Except it was several of the ISPs at the same time were having issues. Netflix moved its traffic to Cogent and Cogent didn't have the prearranged capacity to handle it and didn't want to pay for the extra load.