Net Neutrality Wins In the US - FCC Calls Internet a Utility!!
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@Nic I'm hanging with Loggly tomorrow.
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No one knows if this is truly going to end up as any kind of network neutrality. I will withhold my judgement on if this is a good thing or not once the details are released.
"I am submitting to my colleagues the strongest open internet protections ever proposed by the FCC," Wheeler wrote. "These enforceable, bright-line rules will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services."
See, this comment is completely misleading.
Throttling and paid prioritization inside the provider's network to the end user is not the thing that has been mostly complained about.
People have always complained about the Netflix peering issue. That was a peering agreement dispute and not directly related to any kind of consumer network neutrality.
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@JaredBusch said:
Throttling and paid prioritization inside the provider's network to the end user is not the thing that has been mostly complained about.
This is my primary concern - where both parties pay for open access to each other and then the ISPs demand an additional toll beyond the access both parties have already paid for. The ability to throttle or block content. The violation of freedom of speech.
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@JaredBusch said:
.People have always complained about the Netflix peering issue. That was a peering agreement dispute and not directly related to any kind of consumer network neutrality.
My "favorite" thing I've been seeing is people who don't understand peering and how it is monetized. Idiots have actually tried to argue that bandwidth is free, it costs just to get the pipe in.
Netflix et. al. want to be on-net with various ISPs because it costs them less than using the CDNs. ISPs don't want to do that because it would cost them more than just straight peering. But then they find that idiots leave Netflix streaming 24x7x365 which slurps their entire peer with Level3, costing them lots of money, so they have to weigh using them versus bringing in their direct peer pipe.
There is far too many out there who think that ISPs are looking to drive folks to their services by degrading others. Unless they offer a service superior to others, even with a degraded speed, people won't use it. This is why Netflix and Pandora are becoming ubiquitous because they offer a superior service versus others. If/when they were going to be throttled by ISPs, people would STILL use them.
The real winners of "net neutrality" are the level 1 backbone providers, Level3, InterNAP, hell even Cogent. They keep things the way they are now. Which isn't a bad thing. Although ISPs should have the ability to throttle things like that, because morons will still stream things 24x7x365 causing massive unbalanced traffic shaping. I guess coming up with a better routing protocol might be in order soon.
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Well there is certainly a lot of opportunity for bad things to happen still, but this is a start and this was needed for good things to happen. So, while it may not be the ultimate victory, it is a necessary first battle that has been won.
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@JaredBusch said:
Throttling and paid prioritization inside the provider's network to the end user is not the thing that has been mostly complained about.
@scottalanmiller said:
This is my primary concern - where both parties pay for open access to each other and then the ISPs demand an additional toll beyond the access both parties have already paid for. The ability to throttle or block content. The violation of freedom of speech.
Both parties are not paying for open access to each other. That is the point that everyone seems to not get.
The consumer is paying for a pipe of a certain size. That consumer should be able to expect that they will always get the pipe with no interference form their provider. That is what network neutrality is about.
The content providers on the other side are NOT paying for an unlimited pipe. They pay for their bandwidth usage. Depending on where in the ether said content provider connects in, they will deal (usually indirectly) with the various peering agreements that all of the Level 1 providers have.
This end of the issue has nothing to do with network neutrality as the masses understand it. Yes it still does need to be applied here, as Peer B should not be allowed to restrict only Netflix traffic coming in from Peer A just because it is Netflix. But Peer B SHOULD be allowed to restrict traffic from Peer A if the peering agreement balances are not being respected, regardless of the source of said traffic.
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@JaredBusch said:
This end of the issue has nothing to do with network neutrality as the masses understand it. Yes it still does need to be applied here, as Peer B should not be allowed to restrict only Netflix traffic coming in from Peer A just because it is Netflix. But Peer B SHOULD be allowed to restrict traffic from Peer A if the peering agreement balances are not being respected, regardless of the source of said traffic.
Yes, agreed. That's what I am saying. When you look at a network map it is very clear how it should work. There are connection pipes either paying for speed or for volume. The issue is when extortion is applied to end points by providers along the path even though everyone has already paid for the service along the path.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
Throttling and paid prioritization inside the provider's network to the end user is not the thing that has been mostly complained about.
This is my primary concern - where both parties pay for open access to each other and then the ISPs demand an additional toll beyond the access both parties have already paid for. The ability to throttle or block content. The violation of freedom of speech.
I completely agree - this is the only part of Net Neutrality I care about. I hate that Comcast throttles torranting (even though it doesn't directly affect me).
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@PSX_Defector said:
@JaredBusch said:
.People have always complained about the Netflix peering issue. That was a peering agreement dispute and not directly related to any kind of consumer network neutrality.
My "favorite" thing I've been seeing is people who don't understand peering and how it is monetized. Idiots have actually tried to argue that bandwidth is free, it costs just to get the pipe in.
Netflix et. al. want to be on-net with various ISPs because it costs them less than using the CDNs. ISPs don't want to do that because it would cost them more than just straight peering. But then they find that idiots leave Netflix streaming 24x7x365 which slurps their entire peer with Level3, costing them lots of money, so they have to weigh using them versus bringing in their direct peer pipe.
There is far too many out there who think that ISPs are looking to drive folks to their services by degrading others. Unless they offer a service superior to others, even with a degraded speed, people won't use it. This is why Netflix and Pandora are becoming ubiquitous because they offer a superior service versus others. If/when they were going to be throttled by ISPs, people would STILL use them.
The real winners of "net neutrality" are the level 1 backbone providers, Level3, InterNAP, hell even Cogent. They keep things the way they are now. Which isn't a bad thing. Although ISPs should have the ability to throttle things like that, because morons will still stream things 24x7x365 causing massive unbalanced traffic shaping. I guess coming up with a better routing protocol might be in order soon.
Isn't the problem here that the old model the ISP is using no longer works for our new environment. Old model being that users slurped on the internet while downloading a page, but did that fairly infrequently, therefore the ISPs could oversell their bandwidth and rarely run into issues.
Today people want access to their full bandwidth the entire time they are home, i.e. Netflix, etc. Of course this means that the cost of internet access needs to go up to give everyone simultaneous access. Of course the consumer doesn't realize (or care) that the ISP wasn't really giving them what they claimed they were receiving before, so now the consumer wants to know why they have to pay more for the same access they supposedly have had since long before Netflix came around. -
It's not that the ISP wasn't giving them what they asked for, that is not what overprovisioning means. It simply means that people were not asking for as much as they paid for so there was no need to have full capacity on hand to supply the demand. People were getting what they paid for.
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Not always, of course, but most of the time. It's rare to see providers actually running out of bandwidth, even today.
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@Dashrender said:
Today people want access to their full bandwidth the entire time they are home, i.e. Netflix, etc.
Want in one hand, and shit in the other. See which one fills first.
This was the problem with the iPhone when it was released. Stupid, stupid people using the connection 24x7x365. This problem is much more apparent in wireless because you literally run into the laws of physics. Short of another revolutionary multiplexing process, e.g. from AMPS to GSM/CDMA, there is no way to pack more people into a frequency.
Pipes using physical medium run into the same problem. Even if they literally gave the entire DOCSIS bandwidth available to you, the upstream is constrained by the laws of physics in that you can't multiplex the connection on a DS3 at the headend any more than it is now.
I used to use an ISP that charged by the bit. People bitched and moaned about it because they thought bandwidth was free. Yeah, it cost a tiny bit more to use them, but I had one hop to the InterNAP backbone. 10ms lag to games, always available bandwidth, always good. This is where ISPs are gonna have to go to limit dumbasses leaving Netflix on all day long and not watching it.
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@PSX_Defector said:
@Dashrender said:
Today people want access to their full bandwidth the entire time they are home, i.e. Netflix, etc.
Want in one hand, and shit in the other. See which one fills first.
This was the problem with the iPhone when it was released. Stupid, stupid people using the connection 24x7x365. This problem is much more apparent in wireless because you literally run into the laws of physics. Short of another revolutionary multiplexing process, e.g. from AMPS to GSM/CDMA, there is no way to pack more people into a frequency.
Pipes using physical medium run into the same problem. Even if they literally gave the entire DOCSIS bandwidth available to you, the upstream is constrained by the laws of physics in that you can't multiplex the connection on a DS3 at the headend any more than it is now.
I used to use an ISP that charged by the bit. People bitched and moaned about it because they thought bandwidth was free. Yeah, it cost a tiny bit more to use them, but I had one hop to the InterNAP backbone. 10ms lag to games, always available bandwidth, always good. This is where ISPs are gonna have to go to limit dumbasses leaving Netflix on all day long and not watching it.
What was your point?
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@scottalanmiller said:
Not always, of course, but most of the time. It's rare to see providers actually running out of bandwidth, even today.
Then where is the problem? Why are the ISP's crying?
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@Dashrender said:
What was your point?
It was pretty obvious. ISPs should charge for usage, then people would see how it really works all the way to their pocketbook.
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@PSX_Defector said:
I used to use an ISP that charged by the bit. People bitched and moaned about it because they thought bandwidth was free. Yeah, it cost a tiny bit more to use them, but I had one hop to the InterNAP backbone. 10ms lag to games, always available bandwidth, always good. This is where ISPs are gonna have to go to limit dumbasses leaving Netflix on all day long and not watching it.
@JaredBusch said:
It was pretty obvious. ISPs should charge for usage, then people would see how it really works all the way to their pocketbook.
I'll admit that I skipped his last paragraph - the rant bored me before I got to the real meat of his post :).
But to the point that I quoted above, why do they need to go to a pay per bit method? If they are not making enough money selling you the 50 meg unlimited they claim they are currently selling you... uhhhh.. guess what.. they need to raise their rates.. this seems pretty cut and dry. Sure if you want to really make people use less bandwidth start charging by the bit and showing people real usage and cost, but if bandwidth really isn't an issue (I certainly don't know if it is or not) but they aren't making enough to cover the 50 meg they are selling me.. then raise the damned rates. Considering today's lack of competition setup there isn't anywhere for someone to go.. so they are pretty safe...
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@Dashrender said:
Then where is the problem? Why are the ISP's crying?
The ISPs are not crying. The media companies are. Unfortunately for most of us, that is one and the same company. There are very few ISPs left.
And @scottalanmiller's point about running out of bandwidth has nothing to do with it.
No one is running out of bandwidth.
Comcast tinkering with torrent throughput is a net neutrality issue.
Comcast throttling a CDN that happens to provide Netflix service after they go out of balance on their peering agreement is not. Of course that CDN could pay for something usage beyond the peering agreement too. This is basically what Netflix did.
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@JaredBusch said:
Comcast tinkering with torrent throughput is a net neutrality issue.
Comcast throttling a CDN that happens to provide Netflix service after they go out of balance on their peering agreement is not. Of course that CDN could pay for something usage beyond the peering agreement too. This is basically what Netflix did.
I agree with these two statements.
As for ISPs not crying, I'd beg to differ, at least some of them are. Security Now! had a guest on last year, a small ISP owner who was totally against Net Neutrality - felt it was wrong that they couldn't throttle.
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@Dashrender said:
As for ISPs not crying, I'd beg to differ, at least some of them are. Security Now! had a guest on last year, a small ISP owner who was totally against Net Neutrality - felt it was wrong that they couldn't throttle.
I would not want to be a customer there then. I would wager that the ISP does not wish to actually pay for more bandwidth from wherever they are getting their connection to serve their oversold backbone.
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@JaredBusch said:
@Dashrender said:
As for ISPs not crying, I'd beg to differ, at least some of them are. Security Now! had a guest on last year, a small ISP owner who was totally against Net Neutrality - felt it was wrong that they couldn't throttle.
I would not want to be a customer there then. I would wager that the ISP does not wish to actually pay for more bandwidth from wherever they are getting their connection to serve their oversold backbone.
Oh this is definitely the case. From what I recalled, it was a small ISP that was brought online to provide 'high speed' access to a small community/town. Their claim was that rates were already so high that a hike to increase their backbone access would probably put them under because customers would drop the service... What I don't is what the ISP told it's customers their bandwidth per customer was/is under the old oversold platform.
