32 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981Copyright © 2014 E. William Horne. All Rights Reserved.The Telecom Digest for Aug 20, 2014
| ||||||||
We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. - Geoffrey Welsh
See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details.
| Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 09:14:03 -0400 From: Bob K <SPAMpot@Rochester.RR.com> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: FCC issues $100,000 NAL Message-ID: <53F34D9B.8010803@Rochester.RR.com> On 8/18/2014 7:05 PM, bill@horneQRM.net (Bill Horne) wrote: > I just got an email that alerted me to this news: the Federal > Communications Commission has issued an Notice of Apparent Liability > for forfeiture (NAL) to an Oklahoma LEC, charging negligence in > routing 911 traffic and proposiing a $100,000 fine. > This is from the FCC website: <snip> > > http://www.fcc.gov/document/100k-nal-oklahoma-carrier-sending-911-calls-autorecording > And, who are they actually fining? Don't the ratepayers eventually pay this? ...Bob | ||
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 01:24:37 +0000 (UTC)
From: wollman@remove-this.bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman)
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: This has got to stop
Message-ID: <lsu90l$2ar$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>
In article <lstp5v$ek2$1@dont-email.me>,
Fred Goldstein <fg_es@ionaryQRM.com> wrote:
>Nothing going on there is even within the FCC's actual jurisdiction, let
>alone in violation of any rule. After all, this is about content
>distribution, not telecom. Netflix doesn't own wire and doesn't even
>want to rent any. It's just servers in data centers, a big computing and
>content-leasing company.
Um, no. Netflix is a content-distribution network. (To the extent
that there are "servers in data centers", Netflix leases them by the
hour from Amazon.) In some locations they use third-party CDNs, but
their big push over the past few years has been to transition this
service to their own platform (thereby cutting out middlemen like
Akamai).
>There is always the possibility of an antitrust issue, but what is VZ
>doing that competes with Netflix?
Verizon is a big cable-TV MSO, in case you haven't noticed. Their
video (and VOD) business competes directly with Netflix.
>The problem with Netflix is that they assume that the cost of Internet
>bandwidth is precisely zero.
Wrong again. They assume that the cost of Internet bandwidth *within
a provider's network* is the responsibility of that provider, to be
recovered by the ISP directly from the ISP's customers. They are of
course willing to interconnect with providers, at locations of the
providers' choosing, when that would be mutually beneficial. They are
even willing to colocate their content servers on a provider's network
-- that is, after all, what a CDN's business is -- when doing so would
provide better service to their customers.
>TCP uses capacity elastically: Dropped packets cause it to slow down,
>creating an endless sawtooth pattern of end-to-end rates.
Depends on the congestion-control algorithm you use, but accurate to a
first approximation.
>So ISPs naturally want to be compensated for the load. And Netflix
>doesn't want to pay. Netflix thinks its content is so groovy that ISPs
>should be willing to upgrade their networks to accommodate its demands.
No, Netflix understands that its service is one of the principal
drivers for the ISPs' customers to upgrade their service to faster,
more expensive tiers, and therefore thinks it reasonable to expect the
ISPs to invest some of this additional revenue into upgrading their
backhaul networks. The ISPs, on the other hand, have seen the upsell
fees as essentially free profit, which they can easily gull from
customers who don't realize that the speed of their access link has no
connection with the speed of the transit network, and who don't read
the contracts that say the provider is under no obligation to engineer
its transit network in a way that allows it to deliver that bandwidth,
not even statistically.
Netflix is doing the public a service by standing up on this
principle. They don't have to do so, and arguably it would benefit
them considerably in the long term to cave -- because that would make
"the next Netflix" a near-impossibility without a huge up-front
investment in bribes to access providers, permanently locking out all
but the most serious competition. Which is of course exactly what the
cable duopoly would like: they realize they can't turn back the clock
and crush Netflix in infancy, but they can certainly do so for anyone
else who might want to compete with them.
Unlike most people, where I live, I have the choice of three cable
MSOs: Comcast, Verizon, and RCN. If I actually cared about Netflix
(I'm not a subscriber) I would certainly consider the quality of
service offered by each provider for Netflix streaming in my decision
as to whose Internet service to buy. Most people don't have that
option, which is presumably why Netflix did a deal with Comcast but is
holding out for better terms from Verizon -- most of Comcast's
customers are in monopoly territory, whereas all of Verizon's FiOS
customers have the choice of another cableco (often Comcast).
-GAWollman
--
| ||
| Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 23:44:59 -0400 From: Fred Goldstein <fg_es@ionaryQRM.com> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: This has got to stop Message-ID: <lsuh7c$pfu$1@dont-email.me> On 8/18/2014 6:58 PM, John David Galt wrote:> On 2014-08-18 13:54, Fred Goldstein wrote: >> The problem with Netflix is that they assume that the cost of Internet >> bandwidth is precisely zero. They come across this because the retail >> price of wireline bandwidth -- that is, what most ISPs charge home >> subscribers per byte transferred -- is not metered, and thus zero. To >> be sure, for most ISPs (urban cable and telco), the cost per bit has >> been so low that it really wasn't worth fretting about. The cost of >> providing service was in the fixed physical plant, not the usage. > Horse hockey. > Netflix is not using Verizon's bandwidth. Verizon's own > subscribers - who have already paid for that bandwidth - are > using what is theirs, and Verizon is only dragging Netflix's name > into the fray to distract us all from the simple fact that Verizon > is trying to cheat its paying customers. > What this tells me is that there is too little competition in the > telecom industry - otherwise Verizon would never dare try to > throttle any site - and the feds not only should be vetoing the > pending ComCast merger and any more like it, they should be > breaking up the existing giants, especially Verizon and AT&T, into > smaller companies once more. There is too damn little competition, that's for sure. But as to the "paid for" argument, it doesn't wash. The price of a retail ISP connection is a fraction of what a commercial connection with lower bandwidth costs. That is, a 10 Mbps residential link is a fration of the price of a T1. The reason is that a residential connection is expected to have a much lower average usage. Commercial users typically have many users on a LAN keeping it busy. Ten years ago a DSL system might average 20 kbps/residential user. Today broadband averages are probably close to ten time that, but a video user is streaming at 2-4 Mbps/show. So a cord cutter can use many times the average that the price is based on. Of course they could charge by the bit, but people wouldn't like that either. So while you pay for the peak, the price is based on a low average, and if the average rises, somebody has to pay. Better Netflix than the rest of us who don't watch it often. |
TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecom- munications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to Usenet, where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'.
TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit educational service offered to the Internet by Bill Horne.
The Telecom Digest is moderated by Bill Horne.
| Contact information: |
Bill Horne Telecom Digest 43 Deerfield Road Sharon MA 02067-2301 339-364-8487 bill at horne dot net |
| Subscribe: | telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=subscribe telecom |
| Unsubscribe: | telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=unsubscribe telecom |
This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Copyright © 2014 E. William Horne. All rights reserved.
Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself. Thank you!
All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization.