Re: OT: keep the internet free

Yes, that is exactly the situation.

But, many users CANNOT switch. I only have one viable option in my area. DSL does not work, the lines are WAY too bad for it. Basic dial tone phone service is barely functional, and we have many outages, crackling lines, etc. We curently use Charter cable modem, and it works well, but is plenty expensive. Our business phone line is now moved over to the cable modem, too. Charter is the only cable provider in our area. The only other alternative is sattelite, and that is very expensive for really poor bandwidth.

So, basically, Charter has a monopoly, and this is true of MANY areas in the country (US). Zero competition, and they KNOW it!

Jon

Well, there is this matter of the wires. There are some areas in the US where they have actual competition, ie. several sets of TV cable running down the streets. But, that is QUITE unweildy for a couple reasons, so most of the US that has cable service only has ONE provider. Most of the US that has phone wires only have one provider in an area.

There are rational reasons for this, and the duplication of the infrastructure would generally NOT be cost efficient. So, there really is DAMN LITTLE competition in this business. Where the location is within a couple miles of the phone cental office and the phone companies' cables are in good shape, then you can have two providers, DSL and cable modem, and get a small form of competition. In lots of areas, there is ZERO competition, and that is a bad state to be in.

Jon

OK

ISPs are now a monopoly in many areas so they do need govment regulation..

but the better long term solution would be to have more competition of ISPs.

Yeah, what ever happened to WiMax?

Mark

For those of you who would read WSJ columns I suggest two by Jenkins. For Feb. 6, see "This Is Your FCC on Drugs", and for Dec 30 "A Faster Internet in 2015?".

I found the Dec 30th article absolutely surprising, and I mean surprising. I never knew. The Feb 6th is more political and your genes will more or less decide where you stand.

My only comment is that control is inevitable. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

If you're such an ignorant low-life you need a "talk show host" (and gawd only knows what sub-humanoid you listen to) then it's all over your head.

Jeez, ya tell a guy he's full of shit once, and he can't get it rinsed out of his brain.

Mikek

You're wrong, of course. To make the service affordable, they assume a certain oversubscription. When those assumptions get whacked, someone has to pay. It's far better for those who use the unplanned service to pay than those who don't.

Wrong again (of course).

No you don't.

Wrong. There is an assumption about real bandwidth needed by users. When that assumption is blown, they have to recover the difference. They can recover it from those who use it more heavily (Netflix) or everyone. Why do you want your neighbors to pay your way? Are you a socialist?

Good grief! The producers? No, they're charging the distributors; perfectly reasonable. The alternative is to charge you by the byte. Perhaps you'd like that?

Completely irrelevant. Asinine argument, really.

Because every content provider isn't using 30% of their bandwidth.

That's the alternative. Perhaps you would like to be charged by the byte but I sure don't. I already have that with cell phones. No thanks!

Utter nonsense. At least in the CONUS, there is *always* an alternative. You may not like it but they do exist.

The infrastructure costs are quite high.

What happened to unlimited cell plans?

Den onsdag den 11. februar 2015 kl. 00.34.18 UTC+1 skrev snipped-for-privacy@attt.bizz:

translated; To make as much money as possible they sell and promise something they can't deliver and now they want to make someone else pay them to deliver.

And it isn't netflix that is using anything, they just sell a product which the subscribers pay their ISP to deliver

I can hear you have been listening to the PR

-Lasse

Your universal translator is in dire need of repair.

Good grief, you're stupid. They're not making money off Comcast's infrastructure?

I can tell you're a Democrat.

I'll call Comcast and tell them that my 50 Mbps Internet service (which actually runs 10 Mbps) should be free.

That's exactly what you're telling Comcast; Netflix should have free service. Do note that if Comcast is forced to give them free access to their infrastructure, your rates will double. Not that you (personally) care.

That's backwards. If Netflix has to pay Comcast, my Netflix cost will go up.

Not that you

Are you proposing that Comcast should (over)charge me for Internet access, and also charge everyone who creates content on the Internet?

(except themselves, of course)

Exactly. The Dirty Little Secret is the ISP is selling you a "speed" and only expecting to have to deliver that intermittently. Run your connection at that rated speed indefinitely and they'd get annoyed.

Do they REALLY think people pay for 30Mb service so the 10 web pages they visit in a minute each LOAD in 1/3 the time they would if running a 10Mb service?

If they want to charge for traffic/bandwidth in some other units of measure (total octets, etc.), then they should create pricing schedules that make that very obvious to the buyer. "Gee, downloading those netflix videos are going to cost me $X each!" But, they want to then peddle *their* services at a (artificially) "competitive rate" to *gain* busine$$.

AFAICT, the telcos are shooting themselves in the foot. They've got all this existing copper in the ground/on the poles and fewer and fewer "land lines" to support. Offer a dirt cheap DSL service so that no one bothers with "alternatives".

Instead, they try to gouge for a mediocre DSL service and then wonder why folks find those alternatives (leaving them with the same amount of copper -- but smaller revenue source associated with it)

Google needs to lay fiber in more markets and really shake up the players: invest in the product you are peddling or leave the market! "This is what $20 *should* buy you..." (like it does folks in so many other -- including "lesser developed" -- countries!)

I cannot use DSL, as we are (now that they rerouted our copper pair so it is 18,000 ft to the CO) too far away on a really BAD piece of copper. it is barely functional for plain dial-up use. Cable works quite well, but there is only one cable provider within about 50 miles of us.

So, the only other option is satellite! Not a real good option. We have 90 MB down/4.4 MB up, at least on their internal test. I'd like to see DSL do that!

Jon

Not convinced they should be charging Netflix directly but doing traffic management so that people who are downloading vast amounts of video on demand actually pay for their true bandwidth usage.

That is the problem. There is a qualitative difference between intermittent usage like email and web browsing and newer services like video on demand and entire backups over the net. When large numbers of end users are doing the latter the original premise of the bandwidth capacity of the infrastructure based on contention ratios fails.

The original capacity sums were predicated on people reading content and so limiting the proportion of backhaul that they actually use. This fails dismally if they are continually streaming one or more channels of HD video on demand at around 20MB/minute or 1.2GB/hour.

The models are either traffic shaping so that unless you pay for a premium access service video on demand like Netflix is unwatchable or that the ISPs charge Netflix and other high bandwidth users for access. Same for bittorrent and other continuous bandwidth hogs.

There probably ought to be a premium charge for realtime delivery!

When I first joined the internet I struggled initially to see how the billing worked since I was used to paying by the MB.

That charge could be made larger enough and then shared across the ISPs that deliver the content to users according to proportionate share of infrastructure. Strikes me as a nightmare to do it this way.

It is only the top dozen global streaming services and some of the backup services that are capable of causing trouble for network infrastructure. Something will have to be done as superfast services now mean that a well connected household can stream 7 channels of HD simultaneously whereas a rural user may be lucky to get internet radio!

It could well end up being a by volume charge system. That at least would be equitable - you pay according to the amount that you use!

As we read above, Netflix is using COGENT's infrastructure to access the backbone, and they pay Cogent for that.

To answer your question, NO Netflix is not using Comcast's infrastucrure.

YOU are using Comcast's infrastructure to get Netflix (or whatver you want) packets off the backbone. And YOU pay Comcast for that access to the backbone.

What we really need is more competition in how you access the backbone.

Mark

Idiot.

So none of the bits from NetFlix end up going through Comcast's infrastructure? Again, you're an idiot.

But you *AREN'T* paying enough for constant streaming. Comcast has decided that instead of charging by the bit, they'd have the big users pay the freight. Netflix will then pass that on to you. Seems like a

Completely irrelevant, idiot.