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Pay-to Play and the Tiered Internet

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thu Feb 02, 2006 03:16 PM
from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.
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.

Related Stories

[+] U.S. House Rejects Net Neutrality 598 comments
tygerstripes writes "A recent vote in the U.S. House of Representatives has led to a rejection of the principle of Net Neutrality from the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (Cope Act), in spite of massive lobbying from prominent businesses. According to the BBC, the bill '...aims to make it easier for telecoms firms to offer video services around America by replacing 30,000 local franchise boards with a national system overseen by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'. However, according to House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, 'telecommunications and cable companies will be able to create toll lanes on the information superhighway... This strikes at the heart of the free and equal nature of the internet.'"
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  • Thankfully... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DrEldarion (114072) * on Thursday February 02 2006, @03:17PM (#14629167)
    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.

    • Titan wars... by Bananatree3 (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @03:23PM
      • Re:Titan wars... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by networkBoy (774728) on Thursday February 02 2006, @04:46PM (#14630126)
        (http://www.networkboy.net/)
        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
        [ Parent ]
        • Re:Titan wars... by sumdumass (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:24PM
          • Re:Titan wars... by Master of Transhuman (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @06:23PM
        • Re:Titan wars... by cayenne8 (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @06:45PM
        • Google isn't going to help you (Score:4, Insightful)

          by typical (886006) on Friday February 03 2006, @01:15AM (#14632987)
          (Last Journal: Thursday February 23 2006, @02:47AM)
          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.
          [ Parent ]
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:Titan wars... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by utlemming (654269) on Thursday February 02 2006, @05:40PM (#14630580)
        (http://www.utlemming.org/)
        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.
        [ Parent ]
    • Fight (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tacokill (531275) on Thursday February 02 2006, @03:24PM (#14629252)
      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.
      [ Parent ]
      • Re:Fight by klingens (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @03:42PM
      • Re:Fight by DerekLyons (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @03:44PM
        • Re:Fight (Score:5, Insightful)

          by cswiger2005 (905744) <cswiger@mac.com> on Thursday February 02 2006, @04:05PM (#14629700)
          (http://www.pkix.net/~chuck/)
          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.
          [ Parent ]
          • Re:Fight by _Sprocket_ (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:24PM
            • Re:Fight by cswiger2005 (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:42PM
              • Re:Fight by _Sprocket_ (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @06:19PM
              • Re:Fight by cswiger2005 (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @06:59PM
              • Re:Fight by spacecowboy420 (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @08:25PM
          • Re:Fight (Score:5, Interesting)

            by TubeSteak (669689) on Thursday February 02 2006, @05:35PM (#14630535)
            (Last Journal: Saturday February 25 2006, @11:02PM)
            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
            [ Parent ]
            • Re:Fight by Fishead (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @06:08PM
              • Re:Fight by dnoyeb (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @09:50PM
              • Ugh. by jotaeleemeese (Score:2) Friday February 03 2006, @02:58PM
            • Re:Fight by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Friday February 03 2006, @01:21AM
            • Re:Fight by psibrman (Score:1) Friday February 03 2006, @03:37AM
        • Re:Fight by matth (Score:3) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:05PM
          • Re:Fight by Captain Splendid (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:29PM
          • Re:Fight by CorwinOfAmber (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:30PM
            • Re:Fight by Thomas Charron (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:05PM
            • Re:Fight by Baloo Ursidae (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:26PM
              • Re:Fight by rtb61 (Score:3) Thursday February 02 2006, @09:59PM
          • Re:Fight by mrchaotica (Score:3) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:44PM
            • Re:Fight (Score:4, Funny)

              by bobcat7677 (561727) on Thursday February 02 2006, @04:53PM (#14630198)
              (http://www.stillsound.net/)
              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:(
              [ Parent ]
            • Re:Fight by Thomas Charron (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:09PM
              • Re:Fight by mrchaotica (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:20PM
              • Re:Fight by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @09:43PM
              • Re:Fight by TheSpoom (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @06:24PM
              • Re:Fight by eyegone (Score:3) Thursday February 02 2006, @09:44PM
              • Re:Fight by Thomas Charron (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @10:14PM
              • Re:Fight (Score:4, Insightful)

                by laughingcoyote (762272) * <barghesthowl@NOsPAm.excite.com> on Thursday February 02 2006, @11:19PM (#14632533)
                (Last Journal: Sunday December 03 2006, @11:20PM)

                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.

                [ Parent ]
              • Re:Fight by plague3106 (Score:1) Friday February 03 2006, @09:12AM
              • Re:Fight by plague3106 (Score:1) Friday February 03 2006, @09:14AM
              • Re:Fight by Rhipf (Score:1) Friday February 03 2006, @02:01PM
              • Re:Fight by laughingcoyote (Score:2) Friday February 03 2006, @07:06PM
            • Re:Fight by LootenPlunder (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:42PM
        • Re:Fight by peragrin (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:12PM
          • Re:Fight by cayenne8 (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @07:02PM
            • Re:Fight by catprog (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @07:44PM
          • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
        • Re:Fight by dal20402 (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:20PM
          • Re:Fight by G-funk (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:00PM
          • Re:Fight by DerekLyons (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @07:53PM
            • Re:Fight by dal20402 (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @11:13PM
        • Re:Fight by c_forq (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:44PM
          • Re:Fight by catprog (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @07:52PM
            • Re:Fight by c_forq (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @08:01PM
        • Re:Fight by Thomas Charron (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:58PM
          • Re:Fight by DerekLyons (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @08:01PM
            • Re:Fight by Thomas Charron (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @09:16PM
        • Re:Fight by niiler (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @07:27PM
        • Re:Fight by timeOday (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @08:29PM
          • Re:Fight by DerekLyons (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @09:18PM
      • Oh I wouldn't say so (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Sycraft-fu (314770) on Thursday February 02 2006, @04:01PM (#14629654)
        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.
        [ Parent ]
      • Re:Fight by gwait (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:04PM
      • Re:Fight by mclaincausey (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:09PM
      • Re:Fight (Score:4, Interesting)

        by odyaws (943577) on Thursday February 02 2006, @04:26PM (#14629913)
        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.
        [ Parent ]
        • Re:Fight by Phillup (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @07:20PM
      • And video confrencing.... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Belial6 (794905) on Thursday February 02 2006, @04:35PM (#14630015)
        (http://www.glasshead.net/)
        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.
        [ Parent ]
      • Chicken VS. Egg by ImaLamer (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:44PM
      • Re:Fight (Score:4, Insightful)

        by fatboy (6851) on Thursday February 02 2006, @04:45PM (#14630119)
        (http://www.newspony.com/)
        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.
        [ Parent ]
      • Re:Fight by masklinn (Score:3) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:53PM
      • Re:Fight by crotherm (Score:3) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:15PM
      • Re:Fight by LWATCDR (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:38PM
      • Re:Fight by lymond01 (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @06:18PM
        • Re:Fight by Fred_A (Score:2) Friday February 03 2006, @02:47AM
          • Re:Fight by Bloke down the pub (Score:1) Friday February 03 2006, @06:26AM
      • Re:Fight by johncadengo (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @06:37PM
      • Re:Fight by wvitXpert (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @06:53PM
      • Re:Fight by ZachPruckowski (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @07:32PM
      • Re:Fight by drivekiller (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @10:08PM
      • Re:Fight by MickDownUnder (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @11:33PM
      • Re:Fight by plague3106 (Score:2) Friday February 03 2006, @08:52AM
      • No lets burn thier businesses down. by w3bd4wg (Score:1) Saturday February 04 2006, @06:28PM
      • Re:Fight (Score:5, Interesting)

        by B'Trey (111263) on Thursday February 02 2006, @04:25PM (#14629911)
        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.)
        [ Parent ]
        • Re:Fight by bnenning (Score:3) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:21PM
          • Re:Fight (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Phillup (317168) on Thursday February 02 2006, @07:15PM (#14631193)
            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...
            [ Parent ]
          • Re:Fight by ajwitte (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @07:15PM
            • Re:Fight by Scarletdown (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @10:01PM
        • Google's own end-to-end network is underway . . . by ziani (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:29PM
        • Re:Fight by LootenPlunder (Score:3) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:54PM
        • Re:Fight by yemanja (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @08:10PM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:Fight by jatencio (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:29PM
      • Re:Fight by poopdeville (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:33PM
        • Re:Fight by orthogonal (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @09:22PM
        • Re:Fight by guisar (Score:1) Friday February 03 2006, @08:12AM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:Fight by Molochi (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @11:27PM
      • 3 replies beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Thankfully... by NoTalentAssClown (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @03:25PM
      • Re:Thankfully... by colinrichardday (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:23PM
    • Not fighting by www.sorehands.com (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @03:31PM
    • Price Fixing? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by George Michael (467827) on Thursday February 02 2006, @03:35PM (#14629368)
      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.
      [ Parent ]
      • Re:Price Fixing? by Uther2000 (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @03:47PM
      • Re:Price Fixing? by DerekLyons (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @03:50PM
      • Re:Price Fixing? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by TubeSteak (669689) on Thursday February 02 2006, @03:50PM (#14629550)
        (Last Journal: Saturday February 25 2006, @11:02PM)
        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.
        [ Parent ]
      • Re:Price Fixing? by AviLazar (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @03:54PM
      • 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.
        [ Parent ]
        • Re:Price Fixing? by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:33PM
        • Re:Price Fixing? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by lynx_user_abroad (323975) on Thursday February 02 2006, @04:34PM (#14630013)
          (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Monday October 18 2004, @03:17PM)
          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?

          [ Parent ]
      • Re:Price Fixing? by mwheeler01 (Score:3) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:04PM
        • Re:Price Fixing? by gwait (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:15PM
          • Re:Price Fixing? (Score:5, Interesting)

            by dgatwood (11270) on Thursday February 02 2006, @04:33PM (#14629997)
            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.

            [ Parent ]
          • Re:Price Fixing? by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:48PM
          • Re:Price Fixing? by Truekaiser (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:49PM
      • Re:Price Fixing? by Empty Yo (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:14PM
      • Re:Price Fixing? by supabeast! (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:14PM
      • Re:Price Fixing? by thewiz (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:19PM
      • Re:Price Fixing? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jayhawk88 (160512) <rockchalk88@yahoo.com> on Thursday February 02 2006, @04:31PM (#14629977)
        (http://www.joystick101.org/)
        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.
        [ Parent ]
      • Re:Price Fixing? by drScott2 (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:46PM
      • Re:Price Fixing? by bladernr (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @10:16PM
      • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Thankfully... by indy_Muad'Dib (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @03:40PM
    • If both Google and Amazon are against it... by Expert Determination (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @03:41PM
    • Re:Thankfully... by MikeFM (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @03:41PM
      • Re:Thankfully... by lynx_user_abroad (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:12PM
    • And what it really comes down to by Sycraft-fu (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @03:42PM
    • Dont forget Encryption (Score:5, Interesting)

      by guildsolutions (707603) on Thursday February 02 2006, @03:44PM (#14629474)
      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.
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Thankfully... by Midnight Thunder (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @03:46PM
    • Re:Thankfully... by cavemanf16 (Score:3) Thursday February 02 2006, @03:49PM
    • The telcos don't own TCP/IP. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by s20451 (410424) on Thursday February 02 2006, @03:56PM (#14629597)
      (Last Journal: Wednesday December 13 2006, @06:43PM)
      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.
      [ Parent ]
    • But should the network be neutral? by Skim123 (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:07PM
    • Re:Thankfully... by CPUFreak91 (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:14PM
    • Re:Thankfully... by lynx_user_abroad (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:15PM
    • This is so Disheartening... by mr_dillrod (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:18PM
    • If the telcos do this by iendedi (Score:3) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:24PM
    • 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.
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Thankfully... by Alex P Keaton in da (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:33PM
    • Politicians by waif69 (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:36PM
    • Re:Thankfully... by antarctican (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:39PM
    • Back up just a minute by cagle_.25 (Score:3) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:41PM
    • Re:Thankfully... by Baloo Ursidae (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @04:42PM
    • Re:Thankfully... by sumdumass (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:22PM
    • Re:My guess by symbolic (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @05:32PM
    • Re:Thankfully... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rben (542324) on Thursday February 02 2006, @05:32PM (#14630515)
      (http://www.raybenjamin.com/)
      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.
      [ Parent ]
    • Easy way around this.... by scronline (Score:3) Thursday February 02 2006, @06:31PM
    • Re:Thankfully... by rabeldable (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @08:41PM
    • Re:Thankfully... by tmu (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @08:53PM
    • Re:Thankfully... by bigpicture (Score:1) Friday February 03 2006, @05:48PM
    • 4 replies beneath your current threshold.
  • The End of the Internet, for USians by imoou (Score:2) Thursday February 02 2006, @03:17PM
  • equitable policy would be okay (Score:5, Insightful)

    by yagu (721525) * <<moc.liamg> <ta> <ugayay>> on Thursday February 02 2006, @03:17PM (#14629171)
    (Last Journal: Wednesday August 15, @03:36PM)

    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 by ect5150 (Score:3) Thursday February 02 2006, @03:31PM
      • Re:equitable policy would be okay (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dup_account (469516) on Thursday February 02 2006, @04:29PM (#14629947)
        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).
        [ Parent ]
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:equitable policy would be okay by kdekorte (Score:1) Thursday February 02 2006, @03:31PM
    • Re:equitable policy would be okay (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Austerity Empowers (669817) on Thursday February 02 2006, @03:34PM (#14629356)
      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.
      [ Parent ]