Cable Industry Taking Control of the Net 686
Tompaine.com has a piece warning of measures that cable internet providers are taking to control their users' experiences online. We've touched on this before, but this issue needs a lot of attention and it has gotten very little from the mainstream press.
Whoa (Score:1, Insightful)
Considering who owns many media outlets.. (Score:2, Insightful)
This article is a load of FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
Would you mind telling us where these "test locations" are? This is the same rhetoric we've seen over and over again. There's nothing new in this article and no supporting evidence for ANYTHING that's stated. What a waste.
If they (the cable companies) keep this up... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the article (Score:1, Insightful)
This sounds vaguely familiar... (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems we have someone predicting the "Imminent Death of the 'Net" again. While this is concerning, unless we can have certificable proof (like the test locations for example), then we really ought to take these things with a bit of a grain of salt. Just IMNSHO.
Once you give it to Americans-it's a Right (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is nothing new. (Score:5, Insightful)
Without the core layer routers, root domain system, and communications backbone that the major corporations own and control the internet doesn't operate.
People often forget that the internet is more than just a bunch of computers connected together. It depends on hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment that SOMEBODY has to buy and maintain.
Not getting play from the mainstream press (Score:5, Insightful)
A simple fix (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't get your Internet access from your cable company.
There's still DSL, there's still satellite, there's still (ick) dialup...
there's still a free market, last time I looked.
This sucks.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Where does this leave the independant artist? The person who wants nothing to do with the large monopolistic and greedy organisations?... the person who is quite happy controlling and distributing their art through the free medium of the internet? Will their unofficial works be barred from being distributed through the net?
I seriously smell the RIAA behind this....:(
Fiber/Telecomm companies need to fight this (Score:2, Insightful)
Fiber-optic and telecommunications companies should be fighting such control. The more bandwith people use, regardless of why, is one of the best ways to actually get people to buy all of the products that Nortel, Lucent, etc sell. All of these companies should push for as much broadband use as possible, even if it is for file-trading, as in the end it helps them!
This is one way this can gain some attention. The little guys can't do much here, but if the big tech/telecomm players get against it, then...
So what's the fuss? (Score:5, Insightful)
Cablemodem has sucked for a while now if you're a user like the typical
There's a lot more mom & pops than there are net.geeks. Cable ISP's that survive on volume see more money in providing service to mom & pop websurfer, so they're taking steps to make the network suck more for people like me, and less for mom & pop.
Eventually, the very-lucrative-for-AT&T-Broadband mom & pop will be all that's left on their networks, and that's fine by me.
There's other providers waiting to pick up the slack that cable ISP's leave behind. I've already given my business to a DSL provider who lets me do whatever I want with my line, including hosting web/game/email/dns servers from it.
This looks like a win-win for everyone.
Cable ISP's get the market they want (e-mail & websurfers), I get the service I want from another provider (gaming, running http / ftp servers, etc.), the other providor carves a profitable niche serving me & those like me, and everyone's happy.
So what's the big deal?
Re:This is nothing new. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you have a tunnel established, I'd say blocking port n at your cable modem pretty well controls your access to services that run on port n, wouldn't you?
Sure, we could cram everything into port 80-- technologies like SOAP are built around that basic premise already. But that's not exactly the greatest idea ever.
This sort of thing is a pendulum. Consider pop-up ads. Earthlink is running television commercials advertising their pop-up ad blocking software. Somebody at Earthlink thinks they can get subscribers to sign up by offering a hassle-free Internet experience, and they're probably right. If the pendulum swings too far-- cable modem providers arbitrarily limiting service in ways that customers don't like-- then somebody will see a business opportunity to offer unmetered, unshaped service and the pendulum will start to swing the other way again.
Re:a bunch of FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is there is little competition and soon there will be less. The vast majority of broadband suppliers have an effective monopoly in their area of service. And the consolidation is continuing.
Sure would be nice if we actually had a competitive free market rather than a few giant companies buying monopolies for themselves.
Re:Tired of getting screwed by...monopolies. (Score:2, Insightful)
Go to DSL and get screwewd by a monopoly.
Go to Dialup and get screwed by a monopoly.
Go to satellite and get screwed by a monopoly.
Go to cell phone modem and get screwed by a monopoly.
Send up smoke signals, and have your monoply city government say "don't do that".
You know what? You can't seem to get away from monopolies. BTW the limits will hurt VOIP. So much for escaping phone company monopoly to get caught by another.
Re:This is nothing new. (Score:5, Insightful)
improve service for mainstream users (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm currently subscribed to Rogers cable internet here in Toronto. Lately, speeds have been great, but we commonly go through weeks of terrible service which disappears after another big upgrade for bandwidth. I don't care what people do online, but it's a real pain in the ass to find out that people are downloading gigabytes of movies, music, and general warez over file sharing programs. Sure, they have a great concept, and I've used them in the past, but I truly think that users who abuse these services by downloading many many gigabytes a month should be required to pay more in order to compensate. Bandwidth costs a ton of money for large ISPs, and they're handing it out to us for a flat rate for unlimited usage.
I would rather spend my money at the local $7 theatre or buy a good CD for $10-15 once in a while than download tonnes of stuff which might push my monthly service fee to a higher tier. When it comes down to it, I want the 'net to respond fast when I want to look up show times instead of waiting for some kids a few blocks away to finish downloading a leaked copy of Two Towers over Kazaa.
Re:Evidence? (Score:2, Insightful)
What's important is the ability to operate servers (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that some operators are trying to prevent users from using P2P applications, that effectively convert normal PCs into servers that can be accessed by other users. In other words, the cable user should be able to use his computer as something like a TV or a radio (to access information from other people) or like a TV or a radio station (spreading his message to anyone in the world).
People of the Free Software Foundation say that the computer is not an ordinary machine that can process software, it is a machine that can be used to make new software. In a broadband world, it can be a new medium, accessible to anyone with the technical expertise.
Many cable companies block the ports with firewalls to prevent their computers to act as servers, and that is what we should fight against. Managing a server is no sweet cake, it can be used as a platform to generate spam or a hacker attack. But, if the user signs some form of responsibility agreement, he should be able to use his broadband anyway he likes.
Content? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Considering who owns many media outlets.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly, they aren't taking control of the internet. There will always be several ways to get internet access. You have telephone lines, satellite connections, other companies that own the last mile fiber, and more. Ten years ago, it looked like the telephone companies would 'own' the internet. But looking back, it turned out to be nothing. The same thing holds true right now. Just because cable companies are doing a good job providing high speed access doesn't mean that it will stay that way ten years down the road.
Re:Whoa (Score:4, Insightful)
here in san antonio, people have FLOCKED to Time Warner/Road Runner cable internet.
it's a virtual lock in....dsl got it's ass kicked.
-they promised movies, music, and tons of stuff to download.
now the bate and switch plan is about to go into effect.
they are going to scrap the whole multimedia aspect, and now want people to barely use it....which at $40/month...now becomes expensive for the usage.
people who do stream movies, download large files
cable companies say one thing...."come to us...multimedia is plentiful...the internet is beautiful"
but what they really want is users that barely turn on the computer, check their email, read a text site or two, and sign off.
message to cable companies:
I'LL DROP YOUR ASS IN HEART BEAT....I'LL GO TO DSL, OR EVEN BACK TO DIAL UP...AND I'LL TAKE 100 PEOPLE WITH ME.
Re:So what's the fuss? (Score:3, Insightful)
Less Value != More Money (Score:3, Insightful)
Surely a more effective strategy would be to *encourage* customers to make use of broadband-oriented applications, thereby increasing their reliance on broadband services and solidifying and expanding the customer base of both the cable companies and of the content providers. The current approach will only drive to consumers to use existing, more affordable and more accessible non-Internet delivery channels (voice telephony, television, radio, print media, CD/DVD, etc.).
Don't I wish. (Score:5, Insightful)
The techs laughed at my circuit-- it was the dirtiest they had seen in some time, especially in a major city. Bridge taps, unterminated pairs (one nearly a mile long), some sort of coil, and so on. He said every problem on their list was present more than once, on top of the distance being 50% outside their max window for IDSL (which would have been a whopping 144kbps anyway).
Satellite is out because of the ridiculous ping. Okay for web access, crap for games.
Don't forget that there are plenty of people who still live inside a geographically-enforced cable internet monopoly.
Bandwidth caps.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tiered Pricing (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you meant to say, "it's the only way to be sure that we're paying for what we get." Which makes a hell of a lot of sense to me.
Easy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tired of getting screwed by...monopolies. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what's the fuss? (Score:2, Insightful)
Note: @Home also used to do that a long time ago. (and I blocked them). Since I've been switched to AT&T I have not seen one scan.
"I've already given my business to a DSL provider who lets me do whatever I want with my line, including hosting web/game/email/dns servers from it."
I ignore the Cable company's AUP. What's the worse that can happen? They disconnect me, and _then_ I'll go over to DSL. (And probably they say it is a good thing, as they don't need the tech-savvy people, just the consumer drones).
Re:a bunch of FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
Dial-up: $20 per month
ADSL: 1.5Mb/384Kb $40 per month
Cable: 1.5-2Mb/128Kb $40 per month
SDSL: 384Kb/384Kb $90-130 per month
SDSL: 768Kb/768Kb $100-200 per month
SDSL: 1.1Mb/1.1Mb $120-250 per month
SDSL: 1.5Mb/1.5Mb $140-300 per month
Wireless: 1Mb/1Mb $50-350 per month
Wireless: 3Mb/3Mb $100-500 per month
Now, these all differ in policies, there are ports blocked on some of the cheaper solutions to prevent business from getting residential accounts and paying reduced prices etc, but for the most services this covers the cheapest residential services offered and the more expensive business counterparts from providers that aren't offering broadband to residential customers at a residential rate.
For the most part people don't need upload and don't care about ports being blocked so they are going to go for the cheap ADSL or Cable solution. For those that want high speed bidirection connections they are going to have to shell out a few more dollars. If you don't want ports blocked you are going to have to pay a bit more.
I currently pay $179 per month for a 1100/1100 SDSL connection and have had few complaints with the ISP. I'm getting what I'm paying for and I'm paying a premium. If your average consumer doesn't care about unblocked ports and thier upload capacity then $40 per month seems fair to them and anything more than that seems unreasonable. The broadband market is moving more towards these types of consumers and away from the geeks that want complete 100% unrestricted access with no ports blocked and no bandwidth restrictions. Bandwidth isn't cheap for the isps, and for the most part they have shouldered these costs to sell thier product. That's not feasable, and really never was. So what you see is the ISPs changing thier pricing policies and and thier service policies. I'm not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it is a smart business decision.
You get what you pay for, and if you aren't willing to pay more for a better service then you shouldn't expect it.
Hrm, I'm rereading this and not sure If I've made a point or remained coherant at all, but I had a point when I started..... Oh, right my point is there is plenty of competition, it's just not in the price range of the average joe because the average joe doesn't give a rats ass about what the competition is offering.
This isn't unfair at all. (Score:2, Insightful)
You have to figure, $45.95 per month for a 1.5mbit/s connection by 256kbit/s connection. Let's put this in prospective shall we? Standard T-1 through XO for a 1 Year contract is $800 for 1.544/1.544, with an SLA. You are paying 1/17th of that cost, for your connection. People complain that it isn't always up, that it slows down, that this and that happen. Well, for 1/17th the price, I'm of the opinion, that if you get 1/17th the service, it's worth it. I know that my cable doesn't go down, and that I don't cause problems for my Cable Internet Provider.
I also know that I am one of the individuals that is going to get hit pretty hard over the Pay-As-You-Go kinda deal for bandwidth, because I use 200 to 500GB a month of BW. It's the people like me (and there are lots of us!) that cause comapanies to go out of business. It's like a person with a huge appitite going to a buffet and eating 50 times more than the standard person does. Because people, a "typical" broadband user uses it go check their e-mail, and get to CNN... Fast. Not to download warez, and mp3's like a mad monkey.
Just think about the logic of charging people for what you use, and you will totally understand where I am coming from.
Re:So what's the fuss? (Score:3, Insightful)
Attack the problem on that angle, instead of going after the right of the ISP to use its network as it sees fit.
Re:Anyone using satellite ISPs ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Games, shell access, VPNs, IRC, these things are all just short of impossible with a satellite Internet connection.
Can't improve it, either. That's a speed-of-light limitation.
FCC is the ultimate corporate welfare office... (Score:2, Insightful)
Powell and his cronies argue its a "market dynamics" or "laissez-faire" approach, but in fact it is an active and structural campaign to lock out small business, individuals, and minority group interests. When you combine these efforts with the DMCA, the P2P disruption campaign, and the overstated concern for the "menacing hacker," you have a hoodwinked population and more corporate executives with fat pockets.
A pretty lame complaint from a pretty lame group (Score:3, Insightful)
But beyond political and press circles are another equally important development: new technologies being developed and embraced that can, in practice, transform today's open Internet into a new industry-regulated system that will prevent or discourage people from using the net for file-sharing, internet radio and video, and peer-to-peer communications.
So internet providers, who set their no-state limit pricing structure on an estimate of how much bandwidth each user would be using, have discovered people like my roomate who download over 10 gigs a day on a 1.5/126 up connection and want to make an adjustment to compensate for this.
Consider that if everyone used the net like my roomate did, the rate that we pay would be much higher, and that if everyone on the used the net that like I did, the rate would be about where it is (some Net radio, a lot of games and a lot of Xboxing, etc.)
Recall back in the day when internet connections billed by the hour? Competition took care of that. And if consumers are smart and shop around (most places have the options between a cable provider and several DSL providers), they may be able to maintain being bandwidth hogs. Or folks may just wind up paying for what they use, sort of like the city charges for water. What's wrong with that?
TOMPAINE.COM has no idea what Broadband is. (Score:3, Insightful)
Where does this say Cable Companies? How does this not include the other Broadband ISPs such as DSL, or wireline/fibreline or COLO ISPs.
There are many real needs to manage bandwidth as it enters or leaves your network, regardless of what level of infrastructure you maintain.
By grooming some traffic or assigning QOS policies to others, it is possible for any ISP to provide a better level of service to their customers in general. I say possible, because in real world situations I hardly see the benefit of such a system outweighing the costs of the system and its impact. The Ellacoya software does nothing more than a collection of other similar products achieve, it is just bundled in one package.
I don't see it heing difficult to block AOL/Time-Warners competitors from their network without fancy packages such as this, and if they wanted to, they would have already, and it would have been blatantly obvious to anyone on their service.
Imminent death of the net predicted! (Score:3, Insightful)
Are his numbers flawed? Granted that America Online, being the largest provider of ersatz access to the general public, is in bed with Time Warner, a major media (cable included) provider, but am I wrong in thinking that the cable industry does not offer the largest amount of net access? (Especially that many users are still using dialup, for the fact that they just can't afford broadband.)
In all reality, the site given sounds like a tabloid. If I want drek that predicts the death of the 'net, I know where to find it.
Part of this is okay... (Score:5, Insightful)
Having said that, if I'm paying my $5 per GB, I'd damn well be able to use that bandwidth for whatever I deem necessary. The part of the article that makes me nervous is the talk of redirecting requests and the like. Not good...
Re:improve service for mainstream users (Score:2, Insightful)
Argh...more uninformed rants (Score:5, Insightful)
For starters, I think this guy needs a lesson in bits versus bytes in his net radio rant. Of course, that fact that nobody follows a 'b' = bits and 'B' = bytes convention doesn't help, either. 20kBps is 1.2MB per minute. And 20kBps net radio is damn good if you ask me.
I guess this guy's never priced a real connection to the internet. Bandwidth is just expensive. Now, I have no idea why it's that way - seems like it shouldn't be - but it is. Our business DSL line costs us $220/mo for 768kbps symetric. That fact that that same line costs me $70/mo at home is because my ISP knows that our business line is going to do more throughput that my home line. It's factored into the price that the expected behaviours are different.
Now, when people with consumer DSL/cable/etc. connections start behaving like business customers in their usage patterns, telcos start to put the brakes on and say "You need to be paying business-grade prices of you're doing business-grade traffic." What's so wrong about this that it gets every geek up in arms?
If you're going to be keeping the line at capacity >10% of the time, you deserve to pay for it. Any real connection you pay 95th percentile bandwidth charges (that means you pay for your actual metered usage, minus the top 5% of the measurements). And if you're pulling ISOs and MP3s and warez and porn over that, you're gonna get a bill that you may not like.
But...if I've got a 768kbps line that I use for web surfing and email and SSH sessions into work when something breaks, I don't really feel like paying the same amount as you. I say "Bring on the metered lines!" It won't raise my bill - I'm actually using the line the way the telco expects. I've got a line that's 12 times the speed of my old modem for about 4 times the cost. And I certainly do more than 4 times the transfers that I used to. But not 50 times or more.
So, to end my rant, I just wanna know why people think they shouldn't have to pay the actual costs of their transfers. Prices for high-speed connections via cable/DSL are SO low compared to what business-grade connections (T1, etc.) cost. Just be grateful you can afford 5GB/mo in the first place. Try pulling that over your modem.
Re:so what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:bits and bytes (Score:5, Insightful)
I just had this discussion with a friend today... what will be the point of even HAVING boradband if you get 56k speeds? Isn't the whole reason everyone switched to broadband to enjoy the SPEED?
If cable companies can't handle the traffic load, perhaps it's time for some infastructure upgrades? We're going to use more and more bandwidth, and if you cap me slow and then charge me extra, I'll go back to my old 56k. At least that allows me unlimited usage at the same effective speed
Re:The reason is obvious (Score:3, Insightful)
Why bother? Just drop each adserver you encounter in 'hosts' with an IP of 127.0.0.1.
Re:Once you give it to Americans-it's a Right (Score:3, Insightful)
HELL YES.
I will be dammed if i give it back. I pay $50 a month for "high speed" Internet access, which is now going to become SLOWER and MORE EXPENSIVE?
No. I think not. Take the fortume you're making off me and buy faster/more efficient equipment. If your cable modem customer base grew too fast because you didn't see the obvious surge comming/your monopoly fored too many customers to you, DO NOT take it out on the customers. UPGRADE. Make it better. If you make it better, more people will come. If more people come, you make more money and yes, you'll have to upgrade again someday. Ohh the shock, the $3 million you just spent has become obsolete in just 5 short years? Does that hurt the poor baby capitalist's bottom line? OoooOOoOoooo perhaps then you're in the wrong game, Uncle Piggybanks!
</RANT>
Whew, sorry, that kinda works me up a bit. It's really retarded. Anyone from Time Warner wanna chime in and tell us what a friggin mess their system is, and prove my point about the current ratio shift in price vs. quality?
Re:Don't I wish. (Score:4, Insightful)
The techs laughed at my circuit-- it was the dirtiest they had seen in some time, especially in a major city. Bridge taps, unterminated pairs (one nearly a mile long), some sort of coil, and so on. He said every problem on their list was present more than once, on top of the distance being 50% outside their max window for IDSL (which would have been a whopping 144kbps anyway).
Your problem is not your line, but your choice of providers. Don't get me wrong, speakeasy is a great provider if your line is clean to start with, but they can't afford to fix existing problems when you sign up because they're not charging you for the instalation. You have to get a different CLEC. I have worldcom at my current place of residence (not as the ISP though). They found the best of the available pairs and switched my line on to it. Then they spent over a week fixing all the little problems on it. Sure I paid over $400 for instalation, but every other company laughed at my line and said it was impossible. Not impossible, just expensive.
Also, you're line may not be too long. The distance is estimated by an impeadance measurement. With the right equipment a tech can figure out if the problem is due to a partial short or some other cable quality problem instead of distance. They can also estimate the location of the probelm and replace that section of the loop. It's hard to believe that you'd be out of range in a big city.
Satellite is out because of the ridiculous ping. Okay for web access, crap for games.
You also have a motivation problem. If you use your connection for work then it's easy to justify the cost of a first rate provider. If all you do is play games then I can understand having a hard time justifying the cost of a good connection. I'm not saying you shouldn't play games, but if you turn your line in to an income source on top of it's entertainment qualities it is much easier to write that big check.
Re:So what's the fuss? (Score:1, Insightful)
Assuming that people might have found those interesting enough to subscribe en masse, there is no market force preventing them from pricing at whatever the hell they want, particularly after they've subscribed a critical mass of users.
But more importantly, they never would have if they hadn't also added internet access.
Re:Tired of getting screwed by...monopolies. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or do you maintain that it's a coincidence that cable, dsl, and satellite access each cost $44.95/month here?
Interesting (Score:1, Insightful)
If you look back this cycle started back when BBS's were popular spots to download files and programs. Then the internet came and created a global network to share files, programs, and information. Im sure this will repeat itself again when technology creates the next best thing to share these same things.
Maybe if the prices for these goods was reduced to more realistic levels people would have less of a reason to download them over p2p networks. But that would never happen, since its in the corporations interests to squeeze their customers for every penny they can.
We saw this coming years ago. (Score:1, Insightful)
You need to look no further than the lopsided access to bandwidth: fast (1.5 Mbps) coming into your house, slower going out. Oh sure, the outgoing connection wasn't all that slow (initially 256 kbps, and recently cut down to 128 kbps) but there were so many restrictions on the use of that outgoing bandwidth that it eliminated the promise of the internet as a two-way communication medium. You can browse corporate websites at high speed (perhaps even higher on the sites of their corporate friends that they cache) but communicate directly in real-time with your friends, family and neighbors? Hah! Forget it.
Imagine you have a special telephone in your house. The phone company won't let you use it to call your family, friends and neighbors, but you can call the phone numbers of corporations. It seems to be easier to call certain corporations. And when you start talking, you notice that for every sentence you hear, you can reply with only one word.
Welcome to the new internet.
Re:Evidence? (Score:2, Insightful)
Historically, metering has been more expensive. It's easier to just control the size of the pipe, and comes to approximately the same thing. Besides, there's congestion control in the IP protocol that tends to give everyone a reasonably fair share.
Bandwidth is a commodity (I think it was the commoditization of bandwidth that is the part of the reason for the telecom collapse) like water or electricity: cheap, but not infinite.
Well, there's overcapacity right now, but that's probably a short term thing. Unlike water or electricity, bits are getting exponentially cheaper- we can fit more and more bits down a fiber- the fiber is the expensive part of the system, and boxes to handle twice the capacity is less than twice the cost. Beyond a certain point it's going to be too cheap to care. Also, the network equivalent of Moore's law says that the bandwidth in the middle of a network doubles every 9 months- this is a faster doubling than microprocessor speed.
It's not a monopoly... (Score:3, Insightful)
Aside from DSL, the most obvious solution I can come up with is: get your apartment building or townhouse community or neighborhood chipping in together, buying a T1 and splitting it out to everyone, either by wireless or running Cat-5.
DirecTV sells Satellite Internet service. High latency, but that's not really a problem for web, email and usenet. ISDN is still an option, too.
I see the future as wireless, though. You can find out right now whether it's feasible. Call the phone company up and ask them exactly how much it would cost to get a T-1 line to your house. Get pricing on routers, wireless access points and such. Put a flier together, distribute it to your neighbors, asking them how much they would be willing to spend for fast access. A wireless access point with strategically placed antennas can go pretty far. I've seen people say they've gone as much as 4 miles. If you get 20 people ready to go for $50, you could be making money within a couple of months. There are solutions. (The downside in this case is: Who provides tech support? Could be a problem, depending on your neighbors.)
Everyone likes to complain about cable companies being monopolies, but I'm not sure they qualify in the Internet access business. Can't believe the phone companies would let an opportunity slip by, if they saw a bunch of people ready to leave cable companies. I know that Sky Dayton (Scientologist head of Earthlink) is working heavily on getting wireless everywhere.
Need proof, have alternatives (Score:2, Insightful)
Use based pricing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Argh...more uninformed rants (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Whoa (Score:4, Insightful)
Bandwidth isn't free, the facilities for distributing bandwidth aren't free, the people who maintain those facilities aren't free, and I think it's entirely fair that companies charge more to the people who use more. I do think the caps could be a bit more reasonable in some cases; something like 10-20GB/Month with the ability to carry your unused KBs to the next month. That would be enough to curb the continuous 200KB/Second all day, all night, all month types (ie; people who queue a dozen movies, a couple binary newsgroups, then play various 3D online games for a few hours until their movies are transferred) and still allow the majority of users to continue regular use without noticing a difference. Maybe as an added benefeit they could allow people to purchase 'chunks' of extra bandwidth to add to their account at a reasonable discount.
We may yet see a day where continuous 100MBit/Sec connections are as standard in homes as water pipes, but today isn't that day.
Re:The reason is obvious (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Tiered Pricing (Score:1, Insightful)
No, the man is trying to stay in business.
Re:Yeah, yeah, yeah (Score:2, Insightful)
He might as well do, as you said in your example and get a dial up access.
When I went to hire the cablemodem line I got to pay some more than the dial up access I had before, but I did it expecting to take advantage of the service offered to me and the so called "permanent connection" feature to YES: be a hog and download everything I want ant the time of the day I want, if the cable companny does not want this to happen they might as well start a scheduled charging policy and charge me by: "well you get to pay $$$$bucks for access on this month from hour ##:## to ##:##".
So it's not like the 'bandwidth hogs' are taking away the bandwidth of the regular user, as unreasonable as it might sound the cable ISP should offer a service they are capable of maintaining to as many users they can support, not more.
I agree that the proof is not clear on Mr. Paine's article, nor we know his agenda (should he have one, almost everybody does), but I like the internet the way works today, there is room for improvement, but I'm not willing to give any room to make it worse.
The Real Threat (Score:5, Insightful)
But a real menace lurks within all this: the prospect of cable companies charging different fees according to types and providers of content.
What this could mean is that there could be a list of news sites, music stations etc which can be accessed freely, even gigs per month. But accessing any site which isn't in the cable companies' "good books" (read: payola), runs up the traffic charges.
This to me is the bigger threat.
Re:A simple fix-Reasonable definitions. (Score:1, Insightful)
Actual
To most people here a monopoly is defined as one choice and only one choice. Now let's set up a situation. Company A has a a lock on broadband access in it's geographic region. Individual B comes along and decides that he doesn't like the wacky terms that company A has, so he goes out and spends a million dollars building the structures needed to get the broadband access he wants. Now from the viewpoint of individial B the monopoly effectively doesn't exist. For everyone else if they too spend a million dollars they can be relieved from the perception that a monopoly is present in their midst. Does the fact that one has to spend a million dollars, mean that there's no monopoly? Does the idea that the legal definition of monopoly isn't dependent on absolutes ring anyones bell? The word "reasonable effort" comes to mind. Would the situation be any different if instead of one it was three, but all pretty much had the same terms (sounds like our choice of politicians doesn't it)? Choice can only be said to be a "choice" if there's an element of "reasonableness" to it. Presently for a great number of people there is indeed only one. Usually a governmet "endorsed" one. Where there is more, the terms between them are very similiar, kind of making a mockery of "choice". Others it's more chose your poison. Fast but costly. Available but pings are terrible. Monopolies are the natural state that companies aspire to. Maximumn profit for minimumn effort. For consumers it's maximumn benifits for minimumn cost. The middle ground is the war ground and unfortunatelly companies have the upperhand due to people's complacency. If broadband is truely as important as people say, then we need to decide who's going to be the horse, and who's going to be the wagon.
Oh, you are a SUCH a moron (Score:5, Insightful)
The TA96 mandated that phone companies could drop a bunch of regulations, but had to share hardware with competitors. The result was a spate of competition in both local, long-distance, and internet services firms, and a dramatic price drop. The RBOCs saw their end and successfully bribed the government to change course. Cable had never really been deregulated in that sense, and have successfully kept it at bay; their approach is more akin to blackmail.
For an agency that found its niche after the Bell breakup, the FCC has authorized some inexplicably massive telecom mergers lately. The notoriously corrupt Michael Powell made his position eminently clear on competition at the outset, with zero enforcement against the RBOCs' many egregious behaviors toward their "client-competitors." Then, he decreed that Cable providers wouldn't need to share their hardware (as phone companies were "theoretically" required to do by law), and he's since gone on record as being opposed to the CLECs as well... in short - he's sold out any notion of competition, and his figleaf is basically your sham argument, that because we have a choice between Time Warner and Verizon, there's no monopoly.
Which is completely absurd.
It doesn't take a genius to fix prices and rig restrictions in a market with two suppliers in any given region, and less than a dozen nationwide. Prices are already on the steady rise, but TomPaine hits it on the head: the money is unimportant to them compared to control - and they may get it, since this hijacking of the internet is in the interests of the same companies that control the major media outlets, including almost all of the TV news... Putting the internet, ironically, at the center of one of the largest media conspiracies of our time.
Re:Tired of getting screwed by the cable industry? (Score:2, Insightful)
So we have mid size ISPs that had enough customers so they could afford multiple feeds, uptime agreements, and, in the worst case, customers could be enticed to complain to the telco. However, it was hard to find enough customer who wanted quality reliable internet access, so the mid-size ISP was not doing so well and had to cut prices to compete with AOL. Service suffers and the quality is now equivelent to the telco(circa 1999).
At least with DSL the national span of good ISPs gives then some power to fight the cable and telco, but few people are willing to pay the 50% extra for an independent ISP, even though this is the best way for us, as customers, to protect our rights.
Bandwidth != Traffic (Score:2, Insightful)
When they say 1 percent of users are using 16 percent of the bandwidth, they really mean is the "hogs" are 16 percent of the total traffic.
That doesn't mean the total amount of traffic is consuming all of the bandwidth. If their network is configured well, the total traffic in any given region could very easily be a small fraction of total bandwidth.
This will also vary based on time of day, and other factors.
Moekandu
"It is a sad time when a family can be torn apart by something as simple as a pack of wild dogs."
Re:Tired of getting screwed by...monopolies. (Score:4, Insightful)
Using the term monopoly here is really fuzzy terminology.
The problem isn't that there is no competition at all (true monopoly), but that there is inadequate competition.
If I want broadband, I can either pay ATT or Bell South. If I try to pay a CLEC instead, Bell South will make sure that my order is prioritized just slightly lower than the crank complaining that the phone pole is all scuffed up. (In other words, there is no true competition in DSL as long as a single company acts as a gatekeeper).
A choice between two is not a true monopoly, but IS an unusually small choice for a popular product/service. If I want a burger, there's 5 major competitors and dozens of lesser ones. A CPU? Even if I restrict the choice to IA32, there's 4 I can think of off the top of my head. If instruction set isn't a constraint, the choice opens up a good bit more.
Cola has two huge players and dozens of smaller ones. That's an interesting case really. At the top where there are two majors, prices are pretty high for sugar water. The next tier down (store brands), there are dozens of players and prices are less than half the majors.
Gasoline has sevaral (at least 5 choices).
In short, in order to have a healthy competition, we really need 4 or 5 comparable broadband choices.
The other source of broadband complaints is the screwy and quasi-ethical marketing. Rather than offering a service level that will be profitable at a decent price, they offer the moon, and then impose a bunch of bizarre constraints to make sure most can never actually manage to use more than a profitable amount of the service. The net result is that they unnecessarily constrain the usefulness of the service and close off choice.