| Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 03:37:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: rvh40@insightbb.com
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: This has got to stop
Message-ID: <1320396542.9915206.1408865843257.JavaMail.root@insightbb.com>
From: Fred Goldstein <fg_es@ionaryQRM.calm>
> "The places they're" ... already ... "located in"? That does a
> lot of good (not) for rural providers, who are the ones that can't
> get Netflix except via backbone. For these ISPs, many of whom depend
> on fixed wireless, backbone connections are outrageously expensive
> due to middle mile -- the link from their area to a backbone node --
> costs. The middle mile often has to come from the ILEC, at
> outrageous rates, since there isn't much competition to rural areas,
> unless the stimulus build (BTOP) added some.
If you run an ISP and you signed up your customers by promising them
"Unlimited Internet", then you find out that it costs you more to
provide that service than you had expected, because they're watching
Netflix on three TVs while they're running 35 simultaneous torrents of
pr0n and they're watching 10-hour YouTube videos on seven different
computers behind their NAT, then guess what? You are the one who
miscalculated.
Sucks to be you.
If you signed your customers up with a TOS (which nobody reads) that
says you can throttle their speeds after some point which is entirely
up to you to set, then guess what? They should have read the TOS.
Sucks to be them.
Why is any of this controversial?
|
| Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 11:24:55 -0400
From: bill@horneQRM.net (Bill Horne)
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: This has got to stop
Message-ID: <20140824152455.GA16592@telecom.csail.mit.edu>
On Sun, Aug 24, 2014 at 03:37:23AM -0400, rvh40@insightbb.com wrote:
> Fred Goldstein <fg_es@ionaryQRM.calm> wrote:
>> "The places they're" ... already ... "located in"? That does a
>> lot of good (not) for rural providers, who are the ones that can't
>> get Netflix except via backbone. For these ISPs, many of whom
>> depend on fixed wireless, backbone connections are outrageously
>> expensive due to middle mile -- the link from their area to a
>> backbone node -- costs. The middle mile often has to come from the
>> ILEC, at outrageous rates, since there isn't much competition to
>> rural areas, unless the stimulus build (BTOP) added some.
> If you run an ISP and you signed up your customers by promising them
> "Unlimited Internet", then you find out that it costs you more to
> provide that service than you had expected, because they're watching
> Netflix on three TVs while they're running 35 simultaneous torrents
> of pr0n and they're watching 10-hour YouTube videos on seven
> different computers behind their NAT, then guess what? You are the
> one who miscalculated.
There's a fine line between "unexpected" and "unacceptable" traffic,
so please recall that many previous start-up companies, such as
Google, took advantage of the common resource that is the Internet,
without receiving demands that they contribute more to pay for the
physical layer. End users did not receive unexpected charges from
ISPs because they used Napster to download MP3 files, nor when they
downloaded Windows updates, Adobe Acrobat updates, Symantec Anti-virus
updates, or McAfee software.
In other words, if streaming content is an issue of degree instead
of type, then I must ask if you feel ILECs are entitled to limit the
amount of such traffic so as to keep adequate bandwidth available
for the other services the ILEC's users are paying to have available,
such as CNN, or MSNBC, etc.
> Sucks to be you.
Why? Because "I" designed a system with the best information available
to me at the time? Your logic infers a belief that every driver should
be forced to buy a semi-tractor as a family car, since they are more
crashworthy than a compact sedan, but that's not the way we do things:
both companies and consumers take risks in accordance with their own
estimates of value and costs.
> If you signed your customers up with a TOS (which nobody reads) that
> says you can throttle their speeds after some point which is
> entirely up to you to set, then guess what? They should have read
> the TOS.
> Sucks to be them.
Well, that's not always reasonable or workable. If "they" didn't read
the "TOS" in their flood insurance contracts, then "they" are without
food, medicine, or homes the day after hurricane Katrina left New
Orleans and Mississippi.
Except, it doesn't work that way.
Some follow-on events are too big to predict, and that means that
responsible adults must do their best to adapt to an unforseen (and, I
submit, unforseeable) situation that demands large-scale adjustments
to the underlying paradigm.
> Why is any of this controversial?
Because limiting the bandwidth available to streaming content is a
major shift in the business model previously available to entre-
preneurs offering a product or service over the Internet: that of
"end user pays" for all transport costs. However, nothing happens
in a vacuum: we all know that NetFlix and other streaming video
services have been more successful than most predicted. That success,
however, does not entitle NetFlix to externalize more of its costs
onto Internet users whom don't subscribe to its service.
I'd like to clarify this debate, so please answer these questions:
1. Verizon's voice networks are designed for "busy-hour" business
loads: assuming the data networks are also able to carry that kind
of load, do you feel that streaming content providers should, or
should not, be allowed to make use of that capacity (during
off-hours) without paying more?
If not, is Verizon, or any other ISP, entitled to demand ongoing
direct revenue from streaming providers, only a one-time payment to
cover the upgrade costs, a regulated rate-of-return income that
tracks bandwidth use attributable to streaming content, or nothing?
What about network-of-networks players such as Layer 3?
2. Should Verizons be subject to "must carry" rules when streaming
content providers use a system (the Internet) that was originally
equipped with 50 kilobit-per-second links, to deliver
multi-gigabit-per-second content, for profit? After all, Verizon
shareholders had to pay to construct whatever capability is
currently available, even if it was intended for a different class
of traffic: should Verizon's investors be required to pay for
upgrades and maintenance to pipes which most of Verizon's users
will never employ?
3. How do you feel Verizon should be entitled to view the physical
layer of the network? Does a regulated common carrier have an
obligation to design, provision, construct, and maintain a
Terabyte-per-second fiber link to every home or office, on the
grounds that nobody else was ever asked to contribute to the costs
before?
Bill
--
Bill Horne
(Remove QRM from my email to write to me directly)
|
| Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 10:36:17 -0700
From: John David Galt <jdg@remove-this.diogenes.sacramento.ca.us>
To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: This has got to stop
Message-ID: <ltd7qm$spg$1@blue-new.rahul.net>
On 2014-08-24 00:37, rvh40@insightbb.com wrote:
> If you run an ISP and you signed up your customers by promising them
> "Unlimited Internet", then you find out that it costs you more to
> provide that service than you had expected, because they're watching
> Netflix on three TVs while they're running 35 simultaneous torrents of
> pr0n and they're watching 10-hour YouTube videos on seven different
> computers behind their NAT, then guess what? You are the one who
> miscalculated.
>
> Sucks to be you.
>
> If you signed your customers up with a TOS (which nobody reads) that
> says you can throttle their speeds after some point which is entirely
> up to you to set, then guess what? They should have read the TOS.
>
> Sucks to be them.
>
> Why is any of this controversial?
Because the number of ISPs, especially high-speed ones, on the market is
still so small that there's not enough competition to keep TOSes fair.
And that situation, as long as it persists, means there needs to be
continued regulation, both of the anti-predation and antitrust kinds.
But the problem will solve itself in time, if regulation is done in a
way that doesn't prevent new companies from entering the field (nor
prevent even the existing large companies from building into each other's
territories and competing with each other).
|
