Verizon Threatens Google's 'Free Lunch' 724
ILikeRed writes to tell us the Washington Post is reporting that Verizon is becoming much more vocal about internet firms using "their" lines to do business without paying extra. From the article: "The network builders are spending a fortune constructing and maintaining the networks that Google intends to ride on with nothing but cheap servers," Thorne told a conference marking the 10th anniversary of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. "It is enjoying a free lunch that should, by any rational account, be the lunch of the facilities providers." This, as lawmakers are approaching new legislation that could let telcos charge internet companies much more for the use of high speed connections.
Free Lunch? (Score:5, Insightful)
This Ain't No Free Lunch (Score:5, Insightful)
Google isn't getting any more of a "free lunch" than anybody else; all that makes them special is that the service they provide with the bandwidth they use is insanely popular and valuable.
Imagine for a moment that Verizon provides natural gas utilities instead of communications utilities. Google pays 'em for the gas they use to bake the big, juicy pies that everybody loves. Google makes a fortune from their pies. Is Verizon somehow due something extra because their gas was used to fire the oven?
All that Verizon can see are the nice, fat pies Google has cooling on the windowsill. This isn't about free lunch; this is about grabbing a piece of Google's pie for themselves--by crook or hook.
Trying to ignore the obvious.... (Score:5, Insightful)
- Does Google pay their network provider(s) for the access they're using?
- Does Verzion derive an economic benefit by having access to Google's services for it's paying customers?
Therefore:
- Does Verizon believe that they're not charging their customers enough for the services the customer uses?
It has not escaped my attention that I'm reading Slashdot on a free day pass paid sponsored by Verizon...
~
Don't peering agreements already cover this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Google has a bunch of servers in a datacenter. That datacenter is hooked up to the Internet somehow, through some ISP, probably a big one (though clearly not Verizon or they wouldn't beaking off about it so much), because if it wasn't hooked up to _someone_ it'd just be a bunch of servers in isolation and Google would be worth nothing. So, Big ISP has run fiber to Google's datacenter(s), and charges Google a fee each month to carry their data. I mean, Google doesn't get free Internet access, do they? Big ISP collects their money, based either on a 95th percentile deal or a byte count deal, depending on the contract. Big ISP doesn't live in isolation either, or they'd be called AOL. So Big ISP probably has a peering agreement with other ISPs, like, say, Verizon. So Google's traffic goes out Big ISP and over to Verizon when a Verizon customer wants it, and some company hooked up to Verizon's backbone has their data go over to Big ISP when a customer at Big ISP wants it. I've just described peering in its most simple terms, haven't I? So, don't peering agreements work such that if more data goes from Big ISP to Verizon in a month, Big ISP gives Verizon money, and if more data goes the other way, Verizon gives Big ISP money. So if Google is such a massive bandwidth hog, they are not in fact getting a free lunch, because Big ISP has to give Verizon money to meet its commitments for the peering agreement, and Big ISP turns around and collects that money from Google in their monthly fee, and if Google is costing Big ISP more every month, then they (simple economics here) charge them more money. So, my question is, what the HELL is the problem? Isn't Verizon already getting paid for Google traffic?
This is ridiculous (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope this doesn't become law, otherwise this is going to hurt the entire internet in more ways than one.
What do I pay my DSL provider for, then? (Score:5, Insightful)
dark fiber (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Simple solution, in Google style (Score:5, Insightful)
Verizon, AT&T- read this. (Score:2, Insightful)
3d candle burning (Score:3, Insightful)
Normally these ideas make me fume with rage at their sheer evilness. This is odd. I can't actually fathom the logic of this one.
Can somebody help me out so that I can move on to righteous hatred of Verizon?
Bullshit Vs. Bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
The are replying to requests made by paying customers of Verizon.
And they're saying they need this to complete their FTTH buildout
in a profitable way?
Hey Verizon! Didn't you do an analysis to see if FTTH would be
profitable before you began such an ambitious program?
If you can't do it profitably, then don't do it. Don't be
disingenuous by saying that now you need Internet Portals to pony
up for some share of the buildout.
And hey, Vince Cerf! You of all people shouldn't be doing the
"imminent death of the Net predicted (film at 11)" bit. If Verizon
or others start providing "tiered access" to the Internet Portals,
paying customers will complain. Let market forces decide the
outcome.
Re:Free Lunch? (Score:5, Insightful)
And I certainly am paying for Internet access. For home, office, and mobile access I spend a couple hundred dollars a month. All so I can use ssh and a web browser and expect to get shitty service. When they offer me gigabit DSL to my home and office (not to mention servers) then we'll talk about raising the prices.
With the shitty connections we get here in the US they should be glad we're willing to pay at all. Some third world countries have better net access. Pitiful.
By god, they're right! (Score:1, Insightful)
Freeloaders!
why is "their" in quotes? (Score:3, Insightful)
So a telcom spends enormous sums of cash laying fiber, and you have the gall to imply they don't even own the backbone. What a bunch of socialists.
Mushrooms (Score:5, Insightful)
No no no (Score:5, Insightful)
However Verizon would like to be paid three times for the Google traffic. You can bet if they win that, then they'll start charging customers extra for "faster" access to google. Their accountants would be thrilled if they could charge 4 times for the same product.
It's difficult to adapt to a new environment (Score:5, Insightful)
Working for a telco is a unique experience. I learned a lot, and believe me, most of it was good. I've learned a lot, both technically and from a management POV. I had some opportunities that a small company could not afford. Even with all problems, it was a good time.
The basic problem with telcos is that they still think in terms of their cash cow service, that is voice. They still think in terms of how much the user will pay per transaction, or minute. They have a huge structure, a huge legacy that can't simply be buried or thrown out the window. They have fear of cannibalizing their own products. But worse, they don't get it, and that's not because they're not intelligent, or bad at what they do. They don't get it because most of the time, people are busy running what pays their wages, and that's the legacy services. There's little incentive inside the company to do something else, specially when it means that it could make a lot of people lose their jobs. There's little incentive for people that talks about cannibalizing revenue.
In the end, telcos are like big animals who are threatened by the changing environment. They may have a lot of power, but in the end, guess what? Evolution is inescapable. Verizon (and other big telcos) may even win this battle, and a few other ones. But in the long term, they can't win the war. Bandwidth is doomed to become cheaper and cheaper. People just want to communicate with each other, and Verizon can't control what people do. It's market at work.
Re:This Ain't No Free Lunch (Score:3, Insightful)
Congress mulls Internet-freedom bill (Score:3, Insightful)
The only way to successfully implement tolls (Score:5, Insightful)
are through collusion or law.
Because the first company that tries to implement internet tolls alone is going to be at a huge competitive disadvantage. So they'd all have to do it at once. But this kind of collusion is illegal.
But law isn't. :(
Re:day pass (Score:3, Insightful)
Auto makers to charge based on job? (Score:1, Insightful)
Or, do you have a well paying job? Surely the car manufacturer deserves a percentage slice of your salary, after all
Sound insane? Well this is the prevalent corp. "logic" today.
Sad, but true.
yet another stretched analogy (Score:1, Insightful)
The situation is analogous to Verizon wanting to charge me or my pizza delivery service a fee for the pizza I just ordered, because I placed the order over a phone line provided by them. What part of "Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on", are they not understanding?
Freeloading (Score:5, Insightful)
Now wasn't that easy?
This is the problem of monopolies (Score:4, Insightful)
But of course Verizon can pretend their customers do not exist because they are part of an oligopoly and their only "competitors" are the cable companies which are doing exactly the same thing.
Now imagine if this think happened in an actual competitive, free market industry. Imagine for example if GM starts complaining that all those people keep using "their trucks" for profit and try to extract payment from everyone that purchases a Chevy truck and uses it haul things for money. It would be ridiculous. It would laughable. And of course GM do not do that. In fact they would actually try very hard to get you to buy their truck and use it for profit without reimbursing them.
But of course GM are part of a competitive industry, while Verison are monopolists.
It is obvious now that a company that obtains a secure monopoly will use it to screw over their customers and everyone else. The big orgy of telecom mergers of the 90's should have never been allowed. But now that it has been allowed, the government or the courts should step in or bar monopolistic behaviour.
PS I hope Verizon do not succeed in making internet access more expensive (either in temrs of fees or adds) because then I will have to stop using their cell phone and they do have a pretty decent network.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Verizon is getting the free lunch (Score:2, Insightful)
Come to think of it, Verizon is using my yard for free. They dug a hole in my property and put their crap there without compensating me. Maybe I should dig up their wire and demand to be compensated. If extortion is going to be allowed, I can assure everyone Verizon will lose.
Re:Google should just stop serving Verizon (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:why is "their" in quotes? (Score:3, Insightful)
I saw nothing socialistic in the story. But when faced with such a plain display of corporate greed, it's not surprising that a capitalist ideologue might get a bit touchy.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
To win the debate, frame the debate. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is about Verizon realizing that providing the pipeline is a good, solid revenue stream
So, they attempt to frame the debate as "free lunch", but the reality is that they're looking for a way to get some of Google's revenues by building a bottleneck.
Re:why is "their" in quotes? (Score:3, Insightful)
As a capitalist ideologue, I look forward to the free market administering well-deserved thrashings to any telcos foolish enough to attempt this extortion.
Re:Mushrooms (Score:5, Insightful)
Suppose you are an electric utility, and you have many millions of paying customers. Life is good; you're a super rich mega corporation, but you would like to make more profits (after all you owe it the shareholders) and have your sites on once again taking the throne back and becoming an honest to goodness monopoly. One day you notice that Sony is selling products that require your electricity to work, and that Sony is making a bundle. Their products absolutely rely on your electricity, and you realize that your electricity is worth more than you thought! After all Sony is getting a free lunch; forget the fact that Sonys customers are already paying for the electricity. You decide that in order for Sonys products (and by extension their customers) will have to pay another fee for the access to electricity that up until now they thought was already paid for. After all, the infrastructure needed to grow the electricity business is not cheap, and you are not interested in giving out a free lunch to anyone.
Re:This Ain't No Free Lunch (Score:5, Insightful)
They could jack up the rates for everyone, but then nobody would use their system, because most people couldn't afford it. They could leave the rates as-is, but then they have to watch the line be leveraged by successful businesses to make tons of money.
To suggest that Google, for instance, gets a "free lunch" with "cheap servers" is ignorant, and completely ignores the expense of employees, infrastructure, code, and other costs of doing business. You might just as well say that the telcos get a "free lunch" with "cheap copper wire", ignoring every other aspect of their business. It suggests that this telco representative at least is confusing companies like Google with a retro image of backyard programmers in a suburban garage -- probably intentionally.
This is not unlike the pricing model that record companies adopt; when an artist is hugely successful, they jack up the price of their CDs. The difference here is that the telcos are providing a service similar to the CD pressing companies, not the record labels -- and can you imagine how long a CD pressing company would stay in business if they tried to charge BMG Music twice as much for pressing Britney Spears CDs as they did other artists? (disclaimer: I have no idea if Britney Spears is distributed by BMG Music)
It's all about greed, pure and simple. Either the telcos will get away with it, or they won't, but don't look for "reasonable" or "appropriate" here -- it's a grab for cash, always has been, always will be.
Re:Free Lunch? (Score:5, Insightful)
People Are NOT getting it (Score:1, Insightful)
They want to charge you (your business) based on a percentage
of your gross revenues. As ridiculous as this sounds,
this is exactly what they have been doing with applications
that run on their cell phones (BREW).
Worse than that, they also compete directly with these buisnesses
and usurp the applications that make the most money with
their own ones. So they want to find a way to control things
as neatly as they have done on the phone. If they don't like
the way your application/service/whatever behaves or they like
it TOO much then it disappears.
No one fears an open market as much as large corporations.
Verizon. The communication terrorist. Fnord!
My Response to Verizon... (Score:3, Insightful)
I am a Verizon residential DSL customer. I am writing to register my anger towards the comments John Thorne, a Verizon senior vice president and deputy general counsel, made on February 6, 2006 concerning Google's alleged freeloading for gaining access to people's homes using, in part, Verizon's network.
I am your customer. I pay my Internet bill with an expectation that you will allow me to transmit and receive IP packets to and from arbitrary Internet hosts without undue concern for the nature of those communications. Of the many services I receive by using the Internet, Google's services rank highly. Google is not your customer, you do not provide these services for Google's benefit. I am your customer and pay you to provide access to Google's (among other's) services for my benefit. If you feel that you are not being adequately compensated for providing me with those services, it is I, your customer to whom you should be turning to receive extra compensation not Google.
I pay for the services I receive from Google (and other Internet content providers) not by paying my DSL bill to Verizon, but by subscribing to premium content and by viewing additional advertising content paid for by other parties. Google then uses their income from these transactions to pay for their Internet Service Providers to transmit and deliver IP packets on their behalf in order to provide their services. The Internet communications network economy functions by ISPs cooperating in order to share each other's networks in order to provide worldwide connectivity services to their customers. If you want to get paid from both ends of the table I suggest you provide end-to-end connectivity from each of your customers to each of the services your customer is interested in at a rate that is competitive with the multi-AS Internet infrastructure.
I am not just paying for the infrastructure required for me to communicate with your corporate network. I would not pay for that service. I am paying for the fact that your corporate network, which is connected to my home via DSL, is well connected to the Internet at large and provides me with a gateway to the content I desire.
I find it discouraging that I, as a customer, have a better understanding of the functioning of your business model than does your own senior vice president John Thorne. I suggest you remember who your customers are and are not.
Thank you,
John Jones
xyz@verizon.net
And
xyz@gmail.com
e-mail addresses changed to protect my inbox.
Re:This Ain't No Free Lunch (Score:3, Insightful)
Verizon wants to charge for customers' minds (Score:1, Insightful)
From TFA~
"While Thorne did not specify that practice, he emphasized the need for companies such as his to find ways to make money to justify their investments. "The only way we are going to attract the truly huge amounts of capital needed to build out these networks is to strike down governmental entry barriers and allow providers to realize profits," Thorne said yesterday."
They are NOT going bankrupt off of their investments. They make money. What they are trying to do is MAKE MORE MONEY. If they think that it is unreasonable to spend the "huge amounts of capital", they should not whine when cities like Philadelphia attempt to roll out municpal WiFi. Afterall, that's just one less cost for them to have to eat, right? Actually, this seems to me like a legitimate case for eminent domain (but I'd prefer to see the Gooberment wait until Verizon stops constructing their network before appropriating it). Many of us consider network connectivity to be a utility akin to water, electricity or roadways for daily function. If Verizon wants to play the "gimmie gimmie" game with the Information Superhighway, they should pause to consider how many RL Superhighways are privately owned in this US of A.
Dear Verizon Communications (Score:5, Insightful)
It has come to my notice that you as a company are dissatisfied, and are complaining that content providers are unfairly stepping on the toes of bandwidth providers without sharing the profits. It has also come to my attention that you as a company are seeking ways of extircating fees from these content providers in order for them to use your network.
I would like to remind you that the bandwidth that these content providers use is being paid for. No, it's not being paid for by the likes of Google, Microsoft, or any other content provider, for that matter, but by your subscribers. That's right, subscribers. You know, those people who send you a check for $39.95 every month in exchange for their 256K downstream, 128K upstream that they use in order to get from their computer to the content provider's services. These hard working, paying customers are sending you their hard-earned money to ensure that that you give them access to the sites and the content that they want.
If you decide to cut back access for subscribers to reach the content on the public Internet that they want you will find yourself losing subscribers. Should you try to enforce disconnect fees on these subscribers, or try to enforce any other end-of-contract requirements, you will undoubtedly find yourself in court from a number of subscribers who would challenge such fees due to your failure to provide services. It could even reach the level of class-action status, which would make your position even worse.
Do consider what you're thinking about doing. Your services are already being paid for. If you don't like the profitability of the enterprise then you should get out of it, not look for ways to extort money out of others.
Sincerely,
TWX
Re:Free Lunch? (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously though, the US has horrible internet access, even in college.
Did it ever occur to anyone... (Score:2, Insightful)
Did it ever occur to anyone that this is effectively what landlords do? Once a shop or restaurant starts to prosper they jack up the rent.
I think this has more to do with VOIP (Score:4, Insightful)
If more businesses start following the adoption of private VOIP networks like Department of Defense [ecommercetimes.com] is doing, the telcos know they're screwed but since they can't stop the DoD, they're flexing their monopolistic leverage to blackmail content providers instead.
I'm just speculating, I could totally be on crack.
- tokengeekgrrl
Re:Mushrooms (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Freeloading (Score:1, Insightful)
Big Business' Big Grab? (Score:5, Insightful)
But they want to get more money for no actual effort on their part.
Their justification is that Google is getting a 'free pass' on their pipes.
The RIAA member companies get paid when customers buy iTunes music.
But they want to get paid more for no actual effort on their part.
Their justification is that Apple are selling iPods on the back of the RIAA content.
Gary's New Laws of Business:
* If your customers are happy and you're making a solid profit, look for ways to screw them to the wall so that they can leave you in droves.
* If your products are selling well and you've got nothing in the pipeline, rework the pricing structure to screw your customers over so that they can leave you in droves.
* Make everything look as though you're hard done by, and call your customers 'freeloaders', 'scum', 'thieves', 'pirates' and any other names you can think of.
* Lobby your government to make everything you do nice and legal, where previously it was unethical, illegal, immoral, bad for business and just plain dumb.
I await my honorary economics degree.
Phone companies want to stop VOIP. Cutting into$ (Score:3, Insightful)
Same ploys as SCO.
They are dying and will do anything.
Re:Free Lunch? (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I'm concerned, when companies try to disrupt the Internet with veiled threats and extortion tactics, they should receive an instant Internet death sentence, i.e. blackholing their traffic until they stop acting like whiny little crybabies. The Internet works solely because each ISP pays their fair share of the bandwidth for their customers. If Verizon doesn't want their customers to have access to Google, all they have to do to cut those costs is stop paying the bill, and I can guarantee their upstream providers will stop providing the pipe.
The problem is that Verizon is among the most greedy telcos on the planet Earth. They overcharge their customers for pretty much everything, but that isn't enough, so they want to charge other ISPs' customers, too. Screw Verizon. Life is too short to put up with companies that screw over their customers to make a cheap buck.
If Google has any sense whatsoever, they'll nip this problem in the bud sooner rather than later---they'll turn Verizon's customers against them NOW while this BS can be contained, rather than waiting until other greedy ISPs decide to jump on the bandwagon and utterly destroy the Internet as we know it....
building a bottleneck (Score:3, Insightful)
This has very little to do with bandwidth, and much more to do with Google's stock price, and Verizon's envy. (Google's market cap is greater than IBM's.)
Re:Trying to ignore the obvious.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Verizon is interested in becoming a "cable company"--like Time-Warner, Cox, Comcast, Cablevision, etc. To do this, they have to "build out" their connections to your house in order to provide more bandwidth. While they'll certainly sell that extra bandwidth to consumers, they also want to get into the business of selling content like HBO, Showtime, Comedy Central, etc.
So, ideally, what they'd do is sell you a 5Mbps Internet connection and--to pull a number out of my ass--a 20Mbps video connection. Sure, it may be over the same 25Mbps wire coming into your house, but the packets for their TV stuff would get priority over the Internet packets to make certain that your TV didn't stutter while you were downloading Google videos.
The problem is, the Telecom Act won't let them do this. The Telecom act says that they have to sell you the 25Mbps connection. While they can provide you with the TV services, they can't give priority to the TV services you paid them for over other services. Thus, you may see your DVR start dropping frames while you download Google video.
Again, the telecoms see these content-services [verizon.com] as helping to pay for this bandwidth build-out. There are plenty of people who think their 5Mbps connection is great for connecting to the Internet. They're not going to pay an extra $50/month for 25Mbps until/unless the services become available. So, Verizon wants to provide the service to try to convince you to pony up that extra money.
Utility companies reportedly up in arms, also (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Do google pay for bandwidth? (Score:5, Insightful)
Google pays for the bandwidth they use from their provider. I, as a broadband connected citizen, pay for the bandwidth I use to connect to Google. Essentially, the telcos are already getting paid twice - once to accept the packet and again to deliver it to it's destination.
There is *NO* reason why additional charges should be allowed. It's lunacy to think that this could be allowed to happen. Cost of access can do nothing but go up, which will further widen the gap between those that can afford to be online and those that cannot.
If the telcos aren't happy with how much they're paid to have data travel across their network, then they should re-address their pricing structure with their customers directly.
Knowing what a price increase would mean to the number of customers they'd retain, the safer alternative is clear - charge the companies that their users want data from.
Free lunch?! Ha! They've kept their lunch safe and now they're asking for the $50/plate buffet. Greedy f'n bastards...
I'm sick of this (Score:3, Insightful)
And of course, this proposal of Verizon's is gonna end up getting costs passed onto consumers, someway or another.
Re:Free Lunch? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you're overstating Google's power a tad here. Sure Verizon will lose customers, but in the end it's a lot easier to switch search engines than it is to switch ISPs. Rule #1: Never underestimate the laziness of the average American.
Also, I don't think 24 hours would be enough to get a lot of people to cancel. Sure they'll talk about cancelling while they can't search for their pr0n or the latest Britney Spears gossip, but as soon as Google flicks back on they'll forget they were ever going to cancel. Rule #2: Never overestimate the memory of the average American. (And if Google were to keep the block on longer than 24 hours, see Rule #1.)
Re:Free Lunch? (Score:2, Insightful)
However instead of blocking outright, which will make congress pass laws regulating search engines, google should do it subtly.
Like they did for bmw.de "claim" that verizon "spammed" its pages, and drop its page rank to zero. And "then" get verisign to "accidentally" redirect verizon link pages to blog pages that describe double-dipping and shout at customers to quit verizon.
Within a week we will see all the major changes you described, provided verizon "gets" the message. But i doubt whether they will get the message at all. Instead they will ask congress to pass new laws.
Google should start paying lobbyists to stand up to these guys. Else they will get rolled over.
Not quite (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, Google has something to offer, and Verizon is mostly just an administrator of something that belongs to the public. The tech that makes it possible to have the internet does not belong to Verizon; there are many other ways of connecting to Google, and Verizon can easily be replaced.
If Google goes away we're back to the days where Yahoo ruled, and it takes months to index the internet, and millions of man-hours. Unless you want bad results, of course. The other crawlers can give you those.
The point is that I think maybe I'm sick of Verizon not having to pay google to use its service. Do they really deserve a free lunch from Google?
Re:Free Lunch? (Score:3, Insightful)
Point being that if Verizon is the only high-speed option (and in many places around me, it is), I don't think you're going to convince people to go back to 56k just to prove a point. But you're quite right - they're greedy bastards, as are most ISPs are. I almost wouldn't mind a Victory Internet Connection just so that I don't have to pay out my ass for a slightly faster connection, especially when they try and gouge prices at both ends. You'll note Verizon says on their website for all packages that there's a price range for any given level. Why? If they're the only option, you pay more. If not, they have to be a bit more competitive. And from what I've heard, their internet is almost as unreliable as their cell phones, which are supposedly the best in the country (and if so, I can't imagine how so many people put up with the things; my signal absolutely sucks everywhere I've been, except when I was camping out about fifty away from a high-powered antenna).
Re:Free Lunch? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Do google pay for bandwidth? (Score:5, Insightful)
ISP service is now a commodity, their differentiation is so minimal. Content is the key.
Plus, if Google actually builds their own backbone as many have rumored, people will be paying THEM just to peer.
Re:Do google pay for bandwidth? (Score:5, Insightful)
I dodged taxi fare by buying a car.
I dodged restaraunt bills by cooking my meals.
I dodged cleaning bills by doing laundry
No, sorry, not working for me.
Oh, yeah, right (Score:2, Insightful)
The ISP's are getting a free lunch as well! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Do google pay for bandwidth? (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. Google and services like it are the only reason what Verizon is selling has any value at all.
If anything, Verizon should be paying Google for adding value to Verizon's service!
End of the Internet? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the end of open information.
The internet will revert back to days where Compuserve and AOL each had their own internet (aka intranet).
Telecom and Internet is INFRASTRUCTURE... (Score:4, Insightful)
Telecom and Internet is a part of our national infrastructure, just as surely as are our roads, the air we breathe, and the radio frequency spectrum. Do we let the construction companies that build and maintain the roads OWN the sections to which they've contributed their efforts? Do we let the corporations who lease segments of RF spectrum own them outright? Do we allow the contractors who build our NASA spacecraft and military equipment continue to own what they've built?
No, we don't; those roads, those radiowaves, those spacecraft and tanks and jets, being part of the common infrastructure and used for the common good, belong to all of us.
So why is it that we've allowed telecom companies, beginning with AT&T, to own the sections of common infrastructure which they've constructed? Shouldn't that infrastructure also be recognized as a commonly shared resource, one owned by all of us?
It's my contention that a grievous mistake was made more than thirty years ago, when AT&T was deemed a monopoly and partitioned. It was indeed a "monopoly", because the infrastructure which they helped create was a monolithic and commonly shared resource, exactly in the same fashion as is our system of roads.
The mistake that was made was allowing that resource to be privately owned in the first place. In partitioning AT&T, that shared resource was still privately owned but now by multiple corporations rather than one. What should have happened all those years ago is that AT&T should have been required to become some form of non-profit and truly public entity, perhaps a government agency or contractor - in the same vein as defense contractors - or a non-profit corporation with public oversight. It should not have been sectioned-up, along with our shared electronic resource.
I suspect the logic behind that mistake extends back even further in our history, to the time of the railroads. Rather than recognizing that the railroads would become part of the common infrastructure and funding their construction with that understanding and with public funds, we left it to greedy ambitious entrepreneurs to do it, and retain control of what they had built. We repeated that mistake again with the telegraph system, and yet again with the first telephones. As a nation, we should never have allowed this to happen.
Fast forward back to here and now, and this looming threat of these corporations - which still own the pieces of this national infrastructure - setting up the equivalent of toll booths at all the major intersections and deciding who has to pay and how much. The immediate problem isn't the root problem, it's a mere symptom of the much older problem.
We had the chance - multiple chances - decades ago to make the correct decision about the long-term ownership of our shared national telecom roadways. We made grievous errors then, in our capitalistic zeal; I see little likelihood those errors in judgement will be corrected now. They will be further compounded, unless we the true owners of that infrastructure finally revolt and take back the deed.
Mark
Precisely. Another RIAA (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Do google pay for bandwidth? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Do google pay for bandwidth? (Score:5, Insightful)
This phrase struck me as particularly poigniant (sp?). Up until now I had simply been infuriated by the assumption that Google and I got internet access for free. Hell, my fees are around $50/month, and I'm sure Google's fees are in the tens of thousands a month. Some free lunch.
But it hadn't really struck me yet that this was censorship wrapped in greed. A company wants more money for nothing, and therefor plans to limit my access to information as a way to basically extort money from other companies.
It really boils down to the one that suffers is the home user. Google can pony up, but may not out of protest. But when all this bullshit about free lunch and Verizon being wronged is taken away, I suffer. My access to information - already a very shaky balance - is threatened, and appears that such censorship will even be made law by our wonderful government.
I've got to stop reading Slashdot. These days, it just gets my blood-pressure up.
Re:Do google pay for bandwidth? (Score:3, Insightful)
As it stands, the argument is already moot because of the fact that the customer pays the operating costs of the telcos (assuming they're not under-charging), but that would underscore the point more deeply.
Nahhh (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope, it'll never happen. It's like the cold war. Each side has too many nukes to lob at each other, and nobody will actually make the first strike.
Look at it like this: Google and other online providers are building this huge host of services. If any telco/ISP actually tries to charge them for running services over their wire, then Google simply stops running services over their wire, blocking off that section of the network entirely. Suddenly telco/ISP's customers can't access their Gmail, can't do their google searches, etc, etc. Customers bitch furiously, and start leaving ISP in droves, to competing ISP that isn't trying to be such a bastard. ISP repents and Google provides service to that segment of the network again.
No ISP is actually going to try to charge these major service providers because the end result is simply that these service providers simply cut them off. The ISP has little or no content that people actually want to use. They'd love to be in the content game, but they have proven, time and again, that they suck at it. Customers want the same content that their friends get. If my ISP does something that impacts my access to the content I want, then I'm damn well going to switch ISPs, yeah?
Google is standing up to the freakin' government to not have to release their search stats, you think they aren't going to shoot the finger to any of these ISP who tells them to buck up for use of their line? The mere fact that Google *will* cut off an ISP is enough to keep that ISP from pulling the trigger on this sort of nonsense, at least until the ISP thinks that it really can replace all the content on teh interweb.
Verizon does lose money - really... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, a broadband connection, depending on overall throughput, may cost $100/month.
Still with me?
OK - How many voice conversations can be supported over that broadband connection? More than 5? More than 10? More than 100? Anything over 5 means the provider is losing money. If someone cancels their wired phone and uses a broadband connection, the provider loses that revenue. Now, a single customer might not be too bad, the company may be providing the high-speed connection. However, it is still less revenue than there would have been.
Now, we throw in a company that sets up in your neighborhood and offers you VoIP services over their broadband connection, so you don't need to keep your wired phone. If 10 people in the neighborhood do that, then the telecomm is 'losing' money. They have less revenue than before, and less profits, they have 1 new customer paying $100 for the broadband connection, but have lost 10 people paying $20, for a "loss" of $100.
Take it to the extreme, and have someone like Google provide phone service to anyone with an Internet connection. Imagine every person in the US cancels their regular phone service to use Google's service. The telecomms go bankrupt, or they have to increase the price of broadband by orders of magnitude. Yes, the company's may be bloated. Yes, tax dollars may have paid for the telecomm to run fiber. However, this was done so services could be fairly offered to everyone. Could my town of 800 have afforded to run fiber 30 miles to the nearest city? No. However, they can pay enough for service that it is profitable to maintain and manage that connection. It is the same with roads. Some roads use federal or state dollars to get paved. They may only connect 30 or 40 people, but that's the way things are. If we didn't do it this way, there would be extensive roads around cities, connected only by the Interstates. OK, I'm kind of off-topic now...
Anyway, the current market prices are because the revenue stream assumes that there will be wired home users paying more than their bandwidth is worth, as compared to a broadband Internet connection. If they lose those customers, it means that the cost for Internet bandwidth will rise - dramatically. So, they would rather have a company providing those services pay more, rather than having the cost pass on to all of their users.
Who is paying for what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Google is paying for their internet access as well. They are using something along the lines of T3, DS3, or OC3 connection(s) which also cost money. Both Telco and Cable companies are using the lines for dual access, one for POTS lines and DSL the other for Cable TV and Internet.
I don't pay for Cable TV as I have satellite, but I don't/can't use Satellite Internet. I don't have a POTS line because I have VoIP, and I don't use DSL.
I know the telco is worried about their $$, but they should provide internet service and VoIP and skip the POTS crap. Even if someone doesn't use the DSL connection, it wouldn't hurt the Telco to charge the $30 a month for VoIP just like they do for POTS. They simply wouldn't give you a DSL Modem, only a VoIP modem.
Either that, or cable providers who offer internet need to support highter bandwidth, like the DS3 and OC3 and higher...then we could cut Verizon and QWest (etc) out of the internet portal picture...
They complain about a free lunch, but as far as I can tell, everyone is paying for their access and usage of the phone lines...just because VoIP and other services directly come into conflict with what Verizon and QWest provide, shouldn't make any difference...the internet is one large marketplace... If they limit or restrict access, then they will be engaging in unfair business practices, or forcing alternatives to their service, which will further bomb their bottom line.