Pay-to Play and the Tiered Internet

Crash24 writes "According to an article at The Nation, "industry planners are mulling new subscription plans that would further limit the online experience, establishing "platinum," "gold" and "silver" levels of Internet access that would set limits on the number of downloads, media streams or even e-mail messages that could be sent or received." " Tiered internet service may be inevitable folks. Brace yourself.

Thankfully...

There are companies fighting this, trying to get policies put forth requiring network neutrality. According to the article, both Google and Amazon are against it, along with other special interest groups. I'm willing to bet that Microsoft would oppose it as well, since they're getting more and more into internet applications. Same goes for Apple.

Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T may be powerful, but they're going to have a hell of a fight if they're going up against Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Amazon.

Re:Titan wars...

If the telcos push this too hard I can't wait for GoogleNet. Pay for unlimited service, or enjoy the Internet, free of charge, witha google ad on the top of every page or some such.

I think I would likely be willing to pay $20-$25 a month for that... (assuming 1Mbps/384Kbps or some such)
-nB

Google isn't going to help you

If the telcos push this too hard I can't wait for GoogleNet. Pay for unlimited service, or enjoy the Internet, free of charge, witha google ad on the top of every page or some such.

Generally, Google can be said to do great things because they find information that isn't currently being used and then utilize that information at a huge scale. That produces some amazing results. Everyone wins (except for maybe their competitors).

This is a question of policy, not a technical advancement. Some users are being subsidized by other users. Yes, that's you with the P2P client. Probably many Slashdotters are being subsidized by other users today, which is probably why the idea isn't popular here.

However, in terms of efficiency for the industry, it's a good thing. You want to not force people to pay for what they aren't themselves using. My parents barely use the Internet at all -- why should they be forced to pay for the dozens of gigs a month the kid down the block is pulling down? You want to encourage people not to waste bandwidth -- this will help promote network-friendly software and behavior.

Plus, if the tiers get fine-grained enough, they'd be great for techies. Right now, there is a very, very rough-grained tiering currently happening at most ISPs. You have "business class" and "home class". Unfortunately, most techies wind up uncomfortably best fit by "business class" service. They'd like to have multiple static IP addresses, they don't want any ports to be blocked in or out, they don't really give a damn about the ISP's webmail, and so forth. They don't need technical support, and don't really want to subsidize the cost of having some minimum-wage worker repeat -- for the thousandth time -- his troubleshooting flowchart to Joe Sixpack.

The problem is, "business class" service is expensive. Bob Techie isn't actually much more expensive to service than a typical residential user, but he currently gets lumped in with businesses in terms of what he values.

Second, I'm hoping against hope that maybe some ISPs will start offering QoS as part of their tiered packages. That would be *fantastic*. It's in everyone's interest to provide a little extra information that lets routers handle their data more efficiently. If I get, say, 100MB of high-priority data (ToS bit set in the IP header for minimize latency, a la ssh, ftp control, and so forth) a month with my tier, I can get really good performance on the things that I care about -- like, say, playing network games with extremely low latency or sshing into another machine. I don't really care, in comparison, how long it takes my mailserver to shove some mail out. I'm perfectly happy to mark that as "low priority" (or rather, just use software that already does so). P2P software doesn't need high priority, and is there to soak up any available excess bandwidth, and should definitely be low priority.

Re:Titan wars...

No, it's more like David, Goliath's brother, and an amy of pitbull laywers vrs Goliath.

Afterall, with M$, Amazon, Google, all pulling for net neutrality? I would hope it would would stand out a little better.

Fight

Well, except for the fact that MSFT, Google, Apple, and Amazon need the telcos more than the telcos need them. By a wide margin -- and especially true for Google and Amazon (and eBay).

If this is successful, it will be the single largest "limiting" factor in the online world. What if this was the case 10 years ago? We wouldn't have the plethora of online stores we currently have, that's for sure. Or blogs. Or online games. Or P2P for that matter. Or VOIP. NONE of these "cool" technologies would have ever gotten out of the starting gate.

I could go on an on about how bad of an idea it is but I fear I am just wasting my breath. Until internet access is treated as a utility, this nonsense will continue to go on unchecked.

Re:Fight

True. I don't see any problem with Internet providers offerring tiered services so long as you're talking about bandwidth as a commodity, which is specificly a product like salt or water which is "homogenous" and freely interchangable.

However, as soon as you start talking about charging more or less based on which web sites you go to, or which emails you get (and from whom), Internet service *isn't* being treated as a commodity where all connections are essentially just another stream of bits passing by the routers.

Re:Fight

I read an article recently (which I think is relevant to the discussion) about why some hotels charge for internet service and why others give it away free.

http://www.slate.com/id/2135226/ [slate.com]

It basically comes down to "what will the consumer pay." Some people will pay more than others for the exact same service. Either because they've got cash to burn, or because it is more valuable for them.

This is why

Re:Fight

Yes, fun game. I have an electronic version of it on my cell phone. Currently in the game I am playing I own Boardwalk and Park place and a few other properties but a bot player has 3 monopolies with houses on them. Unless those virtual dice really roll my way I don't think I will win:(

Re:Fight

Non-discriminatory Net access is not "a strip club", and is becoming more and more of an essential commodity to people-in their education, in their work, in the businesses they run, in the schools they attend.

We already see false advertising from several ISP's, where they advertise a given speed but then severely cap how much bandwidth you can use in a month, not to mention those which advertise "6 Mbps service!", without mentioning, that if you happen to want to -upload- something, it's nowhere near that. At the very least, they should -have- to advertise it as 6 Mbps download/384 Kbit upload, or whatever the case may be. They also should not be permitted to advertise "unlimited Internet service" unless it is, in fact, that-no bandwidth cap, no rules against servers, no other similar garbage. Anything with those restrictions is LIMITED Internet service, and should be required to be clearly marked.

For example, let's take an ISP that offers 1 Mbit/s download, but "caps" the user to 5 GB (or, to make the math easier, 40 Gb) per month. What are they really offering?

Well, first, let's figure seconds in a month. We shall take a 30-day month just for a nice average, even it being February now.

By my calculations, you'd have (30 days) * (24 hours) * (60 minutes) * (60 seconds), or 2592000 seconds, in a 30-day month.

Now, what's your effective speed? Well, to get a "per-second" rating, let's divide the amount of data you can download (40 Gb, in our example, or 40,000,000,000 bits), by that number of seconds (2592000), to get a nice per-second rating.

Will you look at that? 15433, if we round up-or about 15 Kb/s. You can actually shift -less- data, through this ISP, then you can through dial-up! And yet they advertise "2 million times faster then dial-up!" or whatever garbage it is now.

But these people are telling the truth. Really. And they're not going to collude. Really. They've got a great record so far of not screwing over the customer. And you're right too, it only takes maybe half a billion dollars to even have -any- hope of launching a telco startup. I mean, I've got that in my shoebox in the basement, and I'm sure you do too. So I'm sure both of us could just launch a startup tomorrow and be happy as hell.

Oh I wouldn't say so

What happens if Google, Amazon, eBay, Apple etc decide to blacklist a telco? Bellsouth limits access to them so they respond by blocking all views coming form that network, and launching a media campaigh letting you know that you need to switch to another network to access them. I think I can tell you who would win that one. I persaonlly care little who provides my access, I care only about the content that I'm after. If I can't get it on one network, I'll go to another.

ESPN successfully broght pressure on Cox in a similar manner. Cox didn't want to pay as much as ESPN wanted and so threatened to take ESPN off the channel listings. ESPN in turn let all Cox customers know what was going on. Cox customers got mad and said they'd switch to sat service if this happened, ESPN is still on Cox.

Re:Fight

Well, except for the fact that MSFT, Google, Apple, and Amazon need the telcos more than the telcos need them. By a wide margin -- and especially true for Google and Amazon (and eBay).

I'm not so sure about that - which internet provider would you choose, the one with or without Google? The telco's could only win such a battle if they colluded, which would probably bring anti-trust lawsuits galore.

And video confrencing....

While your listing the things that succeded due to internet freedom, don't forget about the things that failed because of ISP/Telco trickery.

*Video confencing still has not taken off. Not because of general bandwidth limitations, but because of upload caps.

*Telecommuting is limited due to blocks, throttleing, or "accidental" outages on ports necessary for telecommuters. (Those of us that do telecommute often pay dramatically more to not have artifical barriers.)

I'm sure others could add to the list. It is the video confrencing that pisses me off. The upload speeds are always so much lower than the download speeds in just about every package that you need a package with way more download speed than necessary just to get sub par upload speeds.

I telecommute, and work on projects that very often require team coding. As in two people sitting together looking at the same screen. Screen sharing works, and we are very productive, but sometimes it would be a whole lot easier if I could see the other coders finger pointing at the screen, or piece of paper.

And, before the trolls come out and tell me I should just move closer to my work, and go into the office, keep in mind. My clients and I are saving money, reducing infrastucture costs, saving air quality, while at the same time improving my quality of life as well as that of my family. I think it is good for me, my son, and society that I get to keep my child home with me most of the time instead of shipping him off to spend more time with a daycare provider than he does with his family. I also have no desire to move myself and my family next to an industrial complex.

Re:Fight

Well, except for the fact that MSFT, Google, Apple, and Amazon need the telcos more than the telcos need them. By a wide margin -- and especially true for Google and Amazon (and eBay).

Really? Let Google or Microsoft null route Bellsouth's netblocks and see who really needs whom.

Re:Fight

First, Google's fiber doesn't do them any good in this situation unless they're also your ISP. Google might have a five inch water line running through your town but if you connect to it via a 1/2" water hose it's all irrelevant to you. If your ISP is Verizon or Comcast or whomever, and they throttle your traffic to Google, Google is going to be slow on your machine no matter how much fiber they have.

Certainly, there's the possibility that if Verizon throttles your connection and Comcast doesn't, you'll switch to Comcast. But if Yahoo pays Verizon not to throttle their data and Google doesn't, is the average user (ie a non-/. reading, doesn't know the difference between ram and hard drive space, still uses IE 5.0, etc) going to know to switch to Comcast or are they simply going to see that Yahoo is snappy and Google is slow, so use Yahoo? I suspect a bit of both will happen, and unless Verizon loses enough customers that they're losing more money than Yahoo is paying them, Verizon is still going to come out ahead.

(Names used here are just examples and not meant to indicate that one company is better than the other.)

Re:Fight

It would take about 17 minutes for Google to add a notice to their pages for Verizon users telling them that their ISP is deliberately crippling their connection.

And even less time for them to figure out where you are based on your IP address, and show you very targeted ads to help you find a better provider!

While making money on the ads even.

Believe me, Google has very little to lose in this fight...

Price Fixing?

But how can it even be legal for Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T to agree to discontinue free service, or reduce output [wikipedia.org] (where "output" is service to the customer, in this case)? Seriously, IANAL, how can this be legal?

The idea of competition is that, when Verizon does something stupid that punishes customers, I can go somewhere else. It's a real problem if all the gatekeepers can legally get together and decide to give us all the shaft. And not even to try to hide their cooperation against consumers?! Messed up.

Re:Price Fixing?

http://www.newnetworks.com/Scandalreslease13006.ht m [newnetworks.com]

The story of how the Baby Bells FuXx0r3d America is relevant to any discussion involving internet service provided by a telephone company.

Starting in the early 1990's, with a push from the Clinton-Gore Administration's "Information Superhighway", every Bell company -- SBC, Verizon, BellSouth and Qwest -- made commitments to rewire America, state by state. Fiber optic wires would replace the 100-year old copper wiring. The push caused techno-frenzy of major proportions. By 2006, 86 million households should have had a service capable of 45 Mbps in both directions, (to and from the customer) could handle over 500 channels of high quality video and be deployed in rural, urban and suburban areas equally. And these networks were open to ALL competition.

In order to pay for these upgrades, in state after state, the public service commissions and state legislatures acquiesced to the Bells' promises by removing the constraints on the Bells' profits as well as gave other financial perks. They were able to print money -- billions of dollars per state -- all collected in the form of higher phone rates and tax perks. (Note: each state is different.)

I honestly wouldn't put anything,/i> past the telcos & cable companies.

They've paid for their legislation & regulation and they'll keep paying up as long as it is cost effective to do so.

Re:Price Fixing?

It seems to me that this level of discrimination should automatically cancel their status as a common carrier... after all, they're looking at the actual data they're carrying now.

Re:Price Fixing?

It seems to me that this level of discrimination should automatically cancel their status as a common carrier...

Common Carrier, per FCC rule, only applies to voiceband channels less than 64Kbps. You can have all the Common Carrier you want, so long as you go back to Dial-up.

Telecommunications companies don't like Common Carrier restrictions. They agreed to them, years ago, because the Public offered them something in return which they would have been fools to pass up: access to public rights-of-way. (Public. That's right. Stuff you owned that got handed over to Private Companies by the Government; that's a tax. In return, you got the Internet. Fair deal?)

We (the People) could impose Common Carrier rules on broadband providers using public right-of-way facilities through a simple FCC rule change. Companies which own their entire network could still discriminate as they want (as would you, as the owner of all the ethernet in your house) but companies running packets through FCC-controlled spectrum (that's everything) or along public rights-of-way (poles, underground cables along roads, etc) would be required to follow the same rules the phone companies have had to follow for 150 years.

Will that happen? Never. Too many slash dotters who still can't think past the FCC is part of the Government, and everything the Government does is bad, so there's no way I'm going to let the FCC impose their laws on my beloved Internet...

Now, where did I put my remote control and bag of quarters?

Re:Price Fixing?

You're correct. If they lose common carrier status, parents could legally sue if their kids go online and see porn, etc. They become largely legally liable for the content that they carry at that point.

Just because it's the most suicidal thing the phone companies could possibly do, that doesn't mean they aren't dumb enough to to it.

Re:Price Fixing?

This isn't a commentary on your personal knowledge/understanding of the subject, but I just find it amusing that this is the second Slashdot story today (along with Verizon Hog) where people are shocked...SHOCKED...that these big Ultra-Mega-Form-Devastator corporations that have been forming over the past decade might actually be bad for the consumer.

What the hell do you expect to happen when you let these companies conglomerate all this power without so much as a "Remember Ma Bell"? Of course they're going to screw us over, they're corporations. If it was legal and made them money they would feed kitten entrails to school-children.

Dont forget Encryption

Also dont forget encryption, If you can encrypt your stream then your ISP has no real clue what it is. I can foresee encryption becoming a major hurdle for this scheme.

The telcos don't own TCP/IP.

The telcos may own the pipes, but the internet is more a series of protocols than the infrastructure that supports them.

If the worst case happens and the telcos "destroy" the internet, why couldn't everybody with a wifi card get together over a metropolitan area and create an internet-like ad-hoc wireless network? It would be a little more complex because the nodes would be constantly moving around (so the routing tables would be hard to handle), but in principle it could work, and there would be no "pipe" for anyone to "own". Maybe this afternoon I will do some cocktail napkin calculations to see if this could work, but if anyone has a reference to something similar I'd like to hear about it.

Co-operatives could get together and arrange for microwave links between cities (or, they could buy some of the "dark fiber" that we keep hearing about).

No central servers, no routers, no single points of failure, no central logging facilities, no closed ports ... maybe the internet has to be destroyed in order to save it.

Do you mean....

"mesh routing [google.com]"?

Chicken and the egg

It sounds like a chicken and egg argument. The CEO of AT&T doesn't think that Google should benefit from using AT&T's pipes. But if there was no Google, Yahoo, Amazon, etc, then nobody would want to use the pipes(or use it less). What the carriers don't realize is that consumers are paying these ISP's upwards of $50/month to get to Google and Amazon. AT&T should be thanking Google for giving consumers a reason to pay $50/month. Back when the internet sucked and you couldn't find anything, pre-google days, it was only worth $19.95 month and dial up was good enough. Now that we have P2P, Google, high quality streaming media, it's worth $40/month. You take away P2P and watch how many people drop back to dial-up.
I see a future where people don't have "free range" web access or email at home at all. You want the news? Subscribe to it. You want porn? Subscribe to it. Don't be surprised when email and web browsing becomes something you use at the office in a closed inTRAnet system.

Re:Thankfully...

If we want to keep the Internet as open as it is, we're all going to have to fight. We can't count on corporations to do it for us. We should be calling and writing our representatives.

Verizon, back when it was GTE, wrote most of the Telecommunications Act. I don't think that most of the legislators who voted on it knew what was in it. More and more that's the case. It's the companies that write the legislation. The people we send to congress simply don't have the technical expertise and apparently don't make sure they have the staffers that do.

If you ever wonder why you don't have the government you want. You should ask yourself when was the last time you communicated your desires to your elected officials and when did you last vote.

Re:The End of the Internet, for USians

You're a little off on how they'd do things.
New model:
500 power user customers @ $100/month = $50,000
4500 email and light web users @ $50/month = $225,000

New Income: $275K

equitable policy would be okay

Is this possible proposed policy to establish equity? If so, I'm okay with that. I've often wondered that for the same $30/month as my neighbor I can download five of the latest linux distributions, sample 20 or 30 trial software packages (large).

What would bother me, and bother me greatly, would be if they established pricing baselines the cheapest of which match what people pay today. In other words, a money-grab.

People have long paid more money to make more long distance calls, that only makes sense. Why not for heavier internet usage? It makes sense that heavier users pay higher fees.

There also could be additional benefits (assuming this is a fair and balanced idea) -- that being a more moderated approach to internet usage. I don't doubt a significant slice of internet bandwidth is absorbed by indiscriminate downloading and uploading, and streaming. I know I don't think twice about downloading Photoshop Elements to trial for a couple days (~300MB) just because I can. I'm also just as likely to stream my music to whereever I am in the country from my server at my home, again, just because I can. How many others approach the internet in the same way? I'm guessing "many".

If users used the internet as a finite resource (which it is, by the way) the usability of the internet would improve almost immediately and expansion costs and needs would attenuate (my opinion). All of this would help keep costs and increased charges down (again, assuming businesses are here to charge us a fair price).

But, based on everything else I see in business, this may not pass the smell test. Sigh

Re:equitable policy would be okay

But you assume there is competition between companies. For example. Where I live I can only get comcast. I can't even get DSL. And it really looks like the communication companies want to band together and set a pricing scheme.

If you are lucky enough to live in a big enough market you might see some competition. But the majority of us, especially people not living in large markets, aren't going to see any competition.

Now so that you can moderate me down, I'm going to posit that internet service (the pipe) should really be considered an utility and should highly regulated to provide maximum access at affordable rates to everyone (again, not just people in large markets).

Re:equitable policy would be okay

I'd be willing to pay more monthly for access to a real time network with guarantees about latency. I would not like to see my current service degrade so that this happens. This would require service providers set up networks to end corporations providing real time services such that latency could be managed end to end. The technology for this exists, but it's screwed up by carriers being hard to deal with.

But the bottom line is this: ATT/Verizon/etc. do not get to establish these contracts. Their job is to run the network. I want a group of 3rd party ISPs to each independently build their own real time networks and sell the services to customers who can chose amongst ISPs to get the best service. The ISPs will then give the carriers instructions about how the network is to be set up, and pay them for their troubles. The INTERFACE to customers, and to the network, must be public, non-proprietary and transparent, like IPv4 is. Customers must be able to monitor and ensure their contract is being upheld. No proprietary set top boxes or any premises equipment, period.

The guy who owns the wire must stop being the guy who provides the service. That model doesn't work. Further we need to see more REAL competition as much as we can. We can't ever see competition over wires, two or three wires does not a competitive market make. So reduce their role by force, and abstract it.

Re:equitable policy would be okay

If users used the internet as a finite resource (which it is, by the way) Um, no?

It's a renewable resource. True, bandwidth is limited (total divided by users), but each completed packet restores that same amount of bandwidth to the network.

Re:equitable policy would be okay

But no one pays extra to make hour-long local calls, if they like, and this procedure has worked very well for quite some time too. Everything, so to speak, is a "finite resource", but with the amount of unused bandwidth floating around there, and the low levels ISP's cap it at (Japan and many European cities see 20-100 Mbps as a matter of course), there's no excuse for this. I expect to pay for bandwidth at a flat rate, and I expect to use it. If all I wanted to do was occasionally look at webpages and check my email, I'd use the $8/month dialup ISP here. I pay $50 a month for broadband because -I expect to use it-.

We already have equitable tiered service

On Cox cable, my "home" account has silver, gold, and platinum levels which vary how high the bandwidth cap on the cable modem is set. Furthermore, there are usage limits (total upload bytes and total download bytes per month), which vary with service tier. And for only $25/mo more (for "business" account), you can get a static IP plus no usage limits and port 25 to the world is no longer blocked.

The problem with the proposed schemes is that they want to meter *applications*, not bandwidth and usage. This is just wrong for any application. But it especially burns for email given the spam problem. I just installed an authentication filter for a client with a business class Cox cable account. He was getting 65000+ emails per day per domain for 20 domains, eating 3MB download bandwidth (they were just getting appended to a rotating log file since he couldn't even begin to try to find the legit mail in all the crap). All but 20 emails per day per domain are forgeries (and now get rejected in SMTP envelope thanks to the filter). Imagine the ISP charging per email SYN packet. Talk about unjust. Most of the 20 are still spam, but at least those spammers will say who they are (and so are closer to a "cold call").

Re:equitable policy would be okay

Internet access has been marketed to the better part of the world for years as an infinite resource, full of promise, that can solve all of your problems, tie your shoes, start your car and julienne your fries. All this for a low, low rate of $xx.yy per month.

Is this possible proposed policy to establish equity? If so, I'm okay with that. I've often wondered that for the same $30/month as my neighbor I can download five of the latest linux distributions, sample 20 or 30 trial software packages (large).

Why should I have to pay extra to download trial software packages and Linux distributions simply because my neighbour does not wish to do so? That's horrible. That's like saying that if my neighbour buys a car and doesn't use it as often as I use mine, I should have to pay more money. He can drive just as much as I do, I simply choose to do so more often, or to take different roads, or to take the longer way home. It costs me more gasoline, but one could argue that using my computer more often costs me more in electricity.

If we saw a lobby group advocating mass tolls on our roads so that we could tax those who drive more often (I'm not talking highways), there would be mass hysteria. Why is this any different?

I don't doubt a significant slice of internet bandwidth is absorbed by indiscriminate downloading and uploading, and streaming.

This is where a lot of people will disagree. What you call "indiscriminate", most people will call "my right". Granted, all of the providers that I've ever been with "reserve the right" to modify their access agreements at any time. I guarantee you, however, that if my ISP imposes this garbage on me, I'll simply find another. And there will always be others.

Businesses, by the way, are not here to charge us a fair price. They are here to make money.

Accepted by the Masses?

I can see this being attempted, no doubt. However I simply cannot see it being accepted by the public. You can't take away something that was free from the public without causing a revolution. I don't think these people have as firm a grasp on the concept of the internet that they think.

It bothers me that the government is having such a field day with all these search engines, blasting them about censoring for China. Yet that same government wants to completely try to contain the internet for the capital gain and exploitation of certain telecom companies?

The internet is the biggest creation of our time, I really hope people won't lie down and let this happen. Use your voice people, do something, I know I will.

Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

Guess I'm over my slashdot article limit...

Seriously, we in Europe have finally gotten rid of the Pay Per Minute system with cable/adsl. You that have had it for so long, want to move to Pay Per View? You're not evolving, you're degenerating...

How things used to be.

Way back in the day (think Compuserve), this is how things used to be. However, eventually competition forced providers to offer flat-rate service because that's what the market demanded. How is this any different? Any provider that abandons flat-rate pricing risks losing customers in droves.

Brace yourself...

...and prepare yourself for finding ways to avoid the major providers. A few months back, I was messing around with finding ways to provide a wireless network within my community mostly for file sharing but also for finding ways to minimize our reliance on the pipes coming in (Comcast, SBC and 3 WiFi high speed providers) so we won't have to worry about it in the future.

Then it occurred to me that these minornets could very well be linked to one another -- microwave or other wireless connections. Sure, the latency goes up, but the reliance on the communications cartels (there is definitely a collusive conspiracy theory there!) is reduced greatly. You tie into the main Internet at a few points, set up your routing to get everyone into the main Internet in the fastest fashion, and you're set. It might be complicated initially but the software and hardware is out there to make it happen, IF NEEDED.

I really think that the whole idea of relying on the big boys' land lines might not be necessary. I was a endpoint on Fidonet, and got along just fine as technology progressed -- some people used X.25, some used landlines, some used ISDN lines, but we all got along. It was slow, but it worked, and it became better over time.

We have to thank the big providers for really being confused for so long as to how they can take advantage of the net. Now we have many ways to stay connected -- I connect to the web via my PDA (and my laptop) through my Samsung t809 with a Bluetooth connection. I'm using it right now, and I get 150kbps downloads -- more than enough. If I didn't have T-Mobile's great package, I know I have about 5 other wireless providers I could buy bandwidth from.

Give it time. Those who try to control you will not realize that there are those who know they can offer less control at a better price. Don't like the monopoly tiered service in your community? Go get a T1, and run a WiFi provider in your area. 3 of my neighbors pay me US$10 a month to get on my megapipe already. I could probably get another 20 of them if I really went out to try.

Tiered service MIGHT be what the average household wants, though. If the monopolies try it and no one comes in to offer a cheaper/less controlled service, the free market will have answered that question. I'd like to hear what the more authoritarian slashdotters here have to say about how the free market could fail the individual user in this case.

Just remember one thing -- if MegaCorp X is a monopoly provider of high speed bandwidth in your town, it isn't MegaCorp X's fault. Go blame the government who gave them the monopoly. If MegaCorp Y created their connections over previous monopoly status, don't ask MegaCorp Y to give you back what you gave them originally -- the right to be a monopoly. This is why I am against government licensing and regulations -- it creates these monopolies which come to affect us decades later.

It isn't the monopolies' fault that you let your local government give up your rights in exchange for bad service. In the old days, maybe it was OK -- it was either bad service or no service. Yet we see the slippery slope and how it affects us in the future, and we need to carefully think about the programs we're asking for today that might become bad monopoly services in the future.

Spam

If spam could be eliminated look at how much bandwidth would be saved. When my ISP (BellSouth) stops all the spam entering their network, then they can talk to me about how they need to prioritize my traffic because of limited capacity.

Slashdotted ...

I hope this isn't the platinium quality service ...

So what's my motivation?

Ok, the industry goons look at the current model and say "we could make more money if we installed limits."

But wouldn't everyone have to do the same thing on the same day in order to make this work? If my cablemodem suddenly had these idiotic limits put on it I'd move to another service that very day.

How in the world could the industry get paying customers on a less capable model than what we already have? And how could they eliminate every single other alternative?

Price Fixing?

My wife is in the Real Estate industry and I am in the Banking industry. Both have, in recent years, been the target of legal action for price fixing, which, as I understand it is fixing the price of a product or service in agreement with another individual or business, which is illegal. The general rule provides that a vendor may not in combination with another vendor agree to set a certain price thereby creating a fixed price within a certain market. The original article appears to be down, of course, but the summary sounds a lot like price fixing to me.

it's like this already

if i get a dial up modem, or a cable modem, or a t1, i have different levels of service

if you are saying they are going to offer me less bandwidth for the same $, then we have a problem, but i'm sure a competitor has something to say about that

but if you are saying if i pay them 2x$ what i am already paying for a significantly bigger pipe, i don't exactly see what the problem is.

I remember a time when the internet was tiered...

... that was when Internet connections were subject to the per-minute charges levied by the local phone loop owners.

Am I missing something, or does this just smack of wanting to roll back time?

This isn't going to work on that level...

The cat is out of the bag and competition will keep it that way.

Saying that they will charge per e-mail or download is as unrealistic as the electric company charging you per piece of toast, or load of laundry that you wash. What they can charge you on is the bandwidth that you use. Similar to how the electric company can charge per kilowatt hour... Also... They could only ever charge you for what you downloaded. Can you imagine how pissed you would be to find out that all the responses to incoming zombie requests to you computer racked up a $400 "Internet" bill. Even then, people will not be happy with the idea that they have to pay $15.00 extra dollars this month because a Microsoft error led to a giant ass patch they HAD to download.

It will not happen, the die has been cast and you can't repurpose this airplane as a clown's scooter.

Propoganda at work

[i]"Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment, and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!"[/i]

Two thoughts here.

Why should L3 allow at&t's backbone to route traffic across their pipes or vice versa? Are they idiots or would they seriously rather have no interconnects and have the internet break down to multiple WAN's?
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Google or Yahoo! or basically any other web site out there pay for their bandwidth and on top of this, the consumers pay for essentially the same thing on the other end. Basically they're double dipping and still complaining that they aren't making enough.

WTF - I Already Pay for my Usage

Screw AT&T and all the other so-called bandwidth providers if they think I'm going to fork over any more money then I am currently paying.

Ya see, here in the Great White (as in snow) North Canada, I pay a premium price for unlimited downloads. Regular and basic plans have capped monthly limits.

I just can't see how the US government or more importantly the rest of the planet would allow these modern day robber barrons to create this tiered system. That would be like my cable company charging me $10 a month because I watched 100 more reruns last month.

And speaking of my cable company, how would local telcos charge for this "extra" bandwidth? Their pipe isn't going to get any bigger so its not a quantity issue or are they simply going to be tollgates for "priority traffic". Which is probably the case which means its NOT a bandwidth issue, its a money grab.

I think its rather timely that the $200 Billion Broadband Scandel is being released.

http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm [newnetworks.com]

$200 Billion Dollar Broadband Scandal, is a powerful critique that outlines a truly massive case of fraud. The Bell Companies (Verizon, SBC, Qwest, and BellSouth) used trickery and deceit to swindle the U.S. out of a promised 45mbps internet connection. They collected billions of dollars in regulatory fees, and now they are attempting to commoditize the Internet. Kushnick's book uses stunning detail to expose this treachery with accuracy and thoroughness.

You silly Murickans....

I already have this...

Both of the large local broadband providers in my region (Western Canada) currently offer tiered service, capping download and upload speeds arbitrarily to allow them to offer "lite, regular, and extreme" service at siginificantly different price points. One of them even charges a $10 monthly fee to ensure "VoIP quality" service if you're using a third-party internet phone system (that one makes me wonder).

In reality, the sweet spot is still the standard service. If I ever find myself needed an extra two or three Mbps of downstream transfer, it seems appropriate for me to pay an extra $10/month -- I'd obviously cease to be a typical "browsing and emailing" user.

Let them try...

Wireless will be so cheap that we'll just make our own wireless freenet. People won't even need to understand why. "Just put this thing on your roof, and you can have free Internet for life." "Sure, OK!"

tiering - lose common carrier

if they should go tiered, I think they should lose their 'common carrier' status, and be liable for any and all illegal activities that occur on their networks.

New Tiered Market

At first I was angered by these companies trying to charge twice for internet connectivity, once for the connection and again each time you use it.

But now I'm having second thoughts. Perhaps this tiered market is a good idea. I'm thinking that I'll introduce tiered service levels for access to the easement on my property, and I think as a citizen I will request a new tiered system for corporate access to public property. Perhaps something like this would work:

Silver Level, for a minimal fee of say $100 USD per foot per year I'll allow telecom's to lay cable through my backyard.

Gold Level, I'll actually let the telecom's use their cable they laid in my backyard for a minimal licensing fee of 20% of all revenues related to any data which traverses the lines in my backyard.

Platinum Level, for a minimal fee of $10 per connection I'll allow the telecom company to make data connections from their cable in my backyard to cables in the neighbors backyards.

The tiered program for public property will be similar but will require that all revenue from the program is paid back to all tax paying citizens.

This is just my first rough draft, it will need much more refining, but you know I really should have more control over how my property is used and I should be allowed to participate in the capitalization of said property.

burnin

Bean counters rule the world

Once they exhaust every other avenue of revenue the last thing to get attacked is always service. If they are expected to increase profits 5% well the simpliest way is to reduce service 5%. It's what's happened with helath insurance and even food. Try to buy a pound of prepackaged name brand coffee. They are all less than a pound for a reason. Most prepackaged foods went through a similar contraction. Instead of 50 olives we load 49 and change it to weight rather than number. Petty? With high volume items or services it can be millions a year. A friend that worked at Universal was given a raise that was calculated to the half cent. When he complainted to accounting that it was rediculous they calmly explained given the number of employees over the course of a year it saved them tens of thousands of dollars. Reductions in service are unavoidable as execs turn to bean counters to find the next profit increase so they can justify their new raise. Who looses? The consumer.

Simple Solution

This is an easy problem to solve. If the telcos want to provide tiered access to their lines, let them. But if they base their service on the content of the traffic, they're no longer a common carrier, are they? So take away their common carrier status, leaving them liable for all the traffic that traverses their network. I don't see any reason to allow them to have their cake and eat it too. But I think they should get to decide which side of the fence they would like to operate on.

Hosting bills pay for access to the pipes

The article makes use of the ATT/SBC quote of "Why should I let them use my pipes?"
Well, when someone like Google pays their hosting bills, they're paying for access to that pipe. Isn't that why we PAY hosting bills? What did I miss?
If you don't want to sell access on your backbone, then don't. The Internet and its open access system made ATT/SBC its money, as well as many other companies. Do they seriously intend to turn it around and shut down the system that made them rich? Do they intend to create a private online service, like AOL? If that could work, then why are people concerned about AOLs future?
I hope all of this talk is just people over reacting, but some how, I suspect it's more than that.

Just Like the Mobile Companies

This is just like the mobile companies. One byte of email information costs x, but one byte of jpeg information costs y. etc. Complete nonsense. Just vote with your feet when they try it.

We Need Alternatives

Let's do what we can to push for community-based fiber and wireless projects.

It's critical that we are represented fairly when it comes to making use of the spectrum to be given up when analog tv broadcasting shuts down. Think of spectrum as our atmosphere to breathe and speak electronically.
Don't let them sell our "air" to the monopolies.

I am not worried

The market can deal with nonsense like this quite easily. I work for a CLEC, and doing something like this is not on our radar -- nor will it ever be. We have a focus on customer service, because ultimately that earns us more business than exceptionally good prices or any type of coercion. I have a lot of experience that indicates that this kind of policy would truly piss off our customers like very few other things could, and they would start looking for another provider.

So, instead ... WE will be the "other provider." And because we are a CLEC, we are very enthusiastic about taking customers away from Verizon and Qworst.

Re:Fine with me

I'm probably going to get it for responding to "egg troll", but anyway...

Yeah, they own the pipes, but they are already charging people for the data being sent across it. If you make a long distance phone call, lets say, to your grandmother, would it be fair for the phone company to charge both you and grandma for the call? What about if they charge you for placing the call, and then charged grandma extra if she wants the sound of her voice at normal volume, instead of restricted to 10% volume?

Content providers pay a huge amount in connectivity already (I've worked for some, and have seen the bills) and my internet access at home isn't what I'd call cheap either (~$50/month). The backbone providers get their money from the connection providers that the content providers and users, like you and I, buy bandwidth from. So, they are already being paid for the traffic going across their pipes by the parties involved in the transfer.

I don't know about you, but I personally would prefer not to be double billed.