reclassifying internet service as a utility

Amusingly, AT&T and Verizon both made pretty much this same argument with Netflix. Their entire argument was that Netflix wanted them to upgrade their connections to Netflix and for the ISPs to pay the whole cost of doing so under a specious "peering" principle.

Kinda fully that the whole Net Neutrality issue has less to do with greedy ISPs than is does web service providers expecting a free ride.

Netflix was not getting "a free ride". They were already paying for a fast enough connection to the internet. The issue was that the interconnect between Netflix's ISP, and AT&T, was slower than Netflix's connection.

Think of it like this. Imagine you are a Youtube personality (and thus make money by posting videos). You're paying for a 60Mbps connection from AT&T. Google is also paying for a 60Mbps (keeping the numbers simple). You want to upload a video to Youtube, but its only going at 5Mbps, because thats the speed of the interface between AT&T East, and AT&T West. Should you have to pay AT&T an additional fee to upgrade their interface?

I say it is the network operator's job to upgrade their own hardware when it reaches capacity. With peering, both sides typically have to upgrade their hardware, so the expense is split between the two companies. It sucks that it costs so much money, but your responsibility is supposed to be to provide good service to your customers. The problem is, AT&T knows their customers can't go anywhere, so why bother?
 
Amusingly, AT&T and Verizon both made pretty much this same argument with Netflix. Their entire argument was that Netflix wanted them to upgrade their connections to Netflix and for the ISPs to pay the whole cost of doing so under a specious "peering" principle.

Kinda fully that the whole Net Neutrality issue has less to do with greedy ISPs than is does web service providers expecting a free ride.

Amusingly you clearly have no idea about the Cogent (netflix) Comcast/Verizon peering issues... or seemingly how the internet works in general
 
Amusingly, AT&T and Verizon both made pretty much this same argument with Netflix. Their entire argument was that Netflix wanted them to upgrade their connections to Netflix and for the ISPs to pay the whole cost of doing so under a specious "peering" principle.

Kinda fully that the whole Net Neutrality issue has less to do with greedy ISPs than is does web service providers expecting a free ride.

Netflix doesn't send Verizon that data out of the blue unsolicited. Netflix sends Verizon that data because one of Verizon's paying customers has requested that data.

Imagine a FIOS customer actually wanting to use their fast connection that they pay $$$ each month. This is clearly unacceptable. Everyone knows that your supposed to pay for your 75/75 conneciton, which Verizon just did a huge round of advertizing about how awsome streaming is on their new upgraded connections, and not use it. /s
 
Amusingly you clearly have no idea about the Cogent (netflix) Comcast/Verizon peering issues... or seemingly how the internet works in general

Oh, I have a much better idea than you might imagine... :) Its not the imaginary version most of the neutrality advocates seem to think exists, but the version that understands the $billions of investment required to keep it running/growing.
 
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Netflix doesn't send Verizon that data out of the blue unsolicited. Netflix sends Verizon that data because one of Verizon's paying customers has requested that data.

Imagine a FIOS customer actually wanting to use their fast connection that they pay $$$ each month. This is clearly unacceptable. Everyone knows that your supposed to pay for your 75/75 conneciton, which Verizon just did a huge round of advertizing about how awsome streaming is on their new upgraded connections, and not use it. /s

Maybe Amazon should use that argument and demand that the USPS deliver their products for free because, after all, the taxpayers already paid for the trucks and they only delviered a box because the customer ordered it.

No - Netflix was unwilling to pay for enough bandwidth to deliver the products they sold to the carrier. They set up a near fraudulent deal with a couple of "ISPs" so that they could get cheap connections near their data center and then demand that AT&T, Verizon and others offer theim "peering" (even though what Cogent was doing wasn't - and still isn't - anything like the concept of peering long established among "real" ISPs). It was a greedy gambit by Mr. Hastings to get a free ride. Pure and simple.
 
Maybe Amazon should use that argument and demand that the USPS deliver their products for free because, after all, the taxpayers already paid for the trucks and they only delviered a box because the customer ordered it.

No - Netflix was unwilling to pay for enough bandwidth to deliver the products they sold to the carrier. They set up a near fraudulent deal with a couple of "ISPs" so that they could get cheap connections near their data center and then demand that AT&T, Verizon and others offer theim "peering" (even though what Cogent was doing wasn't - and still isn't - anything like the concept of peering long established among "real" ISPs). It was a greedy gambit by Mr. Hastings to get a free ride. Pure and simple.

So what you're saying is that the internet is like a big truck. You can just dump stuff on it, as long as you have enough money. Right.


Again, Netflix isn't getting anything for free. They are paying for their bandwidth just like everyone else. Why should Netflix have to pay for the bandwith that they use, AND also pay for the bandwidth that their customers use, when their customers are ALSO paying for the bandwidth that they use?

If you want to stick with the USPS analogy, this is more like the USPS wanting Amazon to pay to fix pot holes, because the poor quality road is causing their packages to arrive slower or be damaged. Is Amazon paying to have a package delivered to their customer, or are they merely paying to have the USPS pick up a package, and then the customer has to pay the USPS to have them deliver said package?

The internet only works in its current fashion because everyone agrees to these peering agreements. Since one organization doesn't operate all of the networks, the networks needed to create a framework for sharing traffic. Otherwise, you don't have an "internet", you have a bunch of independent networks operating across large sections of the country.

As an ISP, I really don't want to contact everyone that operates a server on the internet and set up a separate agreement so that my customers can access their hardware. Maybe I just grew up in a different environment, where I take responsibility for the performance of my own network/company, and don't try to blame my inadequacies on someone else.
 
Maybe Amazon should use that argument and demand that the USPS deliver their products for free because, after all, the taxpayers already paid for the trucks and they only delviered a box because the customer ordered it.

No - Netflix was unwilling to pay for enough bandwidth to deliver the products they sold to the carrier. They set up a near fraudulent deal with a couple of "ISPs" so that they could get cheap connections near their data center and then demand that AT&T, Verizon and others offer theim "peering" (even though what Cogent was doing wasn't - and still isn't - anything like the concept of peering long established among "real" ISPs). It was a greedy gambit by Mr. Hastings to get a free ride. Pure and simple.

If in this scenario I was paying USPS $$$ a month for delivery service subscription, your god damn right I expect them to deliver my packages from Amazon.

Your analogy falls apart because the user has already paid Verizon for an internet connection.
 
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If in this scenario I was paying USPS $$$ a month for delivery service subscription, your god damn right I expect them to deliver my packages from Amazon.

Your analogy falls apart because the user has already paid Verizon for an internet connection.

Agreed. Just because amazon has thousands of packages delivered every day (and pay for each one) doesn't mean that they should pay for the trucks + the shipping fee.

What the interconnect owners are trying to do is just that, charge a consumer directly for a network upgrade that will be used by others, and the interconnect owner, for other purposes.

Netflix pays their isp for bandwidth into the isp's network. It's the isp's job to deliver that speed and quality of bandwidth all the way out of the isp's network. Other isp's charging netflix for bandwidth onto their networks shouldn't happen because it netflix's isp's responsibility.

Basically netflix's isp oversold their network capacity and don't want to upgrade their edge routers. That's why I suggest the interconnects and the internal capacity should be regulated, not everything all the way to the consumer.

Netflix needs to rent dark fiber from several isp's and rent some space in some internet exchanges. Doing things that way wouod allow them to negotiate the own interconnects. Owning a large national network and the interconnects with other isp's would solve that problem.
 
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Netflix pays their isp for bandwidth into the isp's network. It's the isp's job to deliver that speed and quality of bandwidth all the way out of the isp's network. Other isp's charging netflix for bandwidth onto their networks shouldn't happen because it netflix's isp's responsibility.

Not exactly correct. Netflix put their servers inside Cogent's cages and hosted there. Cogent was not acting as an ISP but rather has a hosting provider. They connected to Comcast, et al, and then claimed to be acting as a peer ISP when in fact they were operating largely as an internet endpoint. Had they been honest about their role as a hosting service for Netflix there would have been no argument to be made when the various "real" ISPs sent them a bill.

Basically netflix's isp oversold their network capacity and don't want to upgrade their edge routers. That's why I suggest the interconnects and the internal capacity should be regulated, not everything all the way to the consumer.

Again, not exactly. The ONLY so-called "peer" that Comcast had any difficulty with was cogent. Cogent's traffic was 99% one-way traffic. They were not a peer - peer ISPs pay for the traffic they send to other ISPs (and cover it by charging their customers). Peer ISPs charge other ISPs for traffic terminated to their network. If - and only if - the traffic flows are near 50/50 do they exchange traffic as true peers and don't bother to charge each other.

Netflix needs to rent dark fiber from several isp's and rent some space in some internet exchanges. Doing things that way would allow them to negotiate the own interconnects. Owning a large national network and the interconnects with other isp's would solve that problem.

I think the ISPs would actually welcome this. Of course Reed would never bother investing the $100s of millions this would cost him. Why should he when he can buy politicians and foolish "neutrality advocates" and get his service for "free" (read: on somebody else's nickel).
 
Not exactly correct. Netflix put their servers inside Cogent's cages and hosted there. Cogent was not acting as an ISP but rather has a hosting provider. They connected to Comcast, et al, and then claimed to be acting as a peer ISP when in fact they were operating largely as an internet endpoint. Had they been honest about their role as a hosting service for Netflix there would have been no argument to be made when the various "real" ISPs sent them a bill.



Again, not exactly. The ONLY so-called "peer" that Comcast had any difficulty with was cogent. Cogent's traffic was 99% one-way traffic. They were not a peer - peer ISPs pay for the traffic they send to other ISPs (and cover it by charging their customers). Peer ISPs charge other ISPs for traffic terminated to their network. If - and only if - the traffic flows are near 50/50 do they exchange traffic as true peers and don't bother to charge each other.



I think the ISPs would actually welcome this. Of course Reed would never bother investing the $100s of millions this would cost him. Why should he when he can buy politicians and foolish "neutrality advocates" and get his service for "free" (read: on somebody else's nickel).


You keep focusing on Cogent, but the bulk of the dispute between Verizon and Netflix involved Level3. Level3 accused Verizon of slacking on peering upgrades and released statistics to refute Verizon's press release on the matter.

So no, it isn't Netflix being cheap on choosing their partners, it's ISPs with little competition being dicks.
 
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Oh, I have a much better idea than you might imagine... :) Its not the imaginary version most of the neutrality advocates seem to think exists, but the version that understands the $billions of investment required to keep it running/growing.

believe me I have dealt with Cogent/XO/Level3/FPL FiberNet/AT&T more than I care to remember, I know allllllllllll about peering and what a load of bs the whole thing is
 
what? what does one have to do with the other? telephone service is a utility and I don't know anyone that pays for that by minute (short of long distance)

electricity and water cost money to produce... bandwidth and telephone lines just cost money to maintain, no "usage" cost to speak of

Truth!

Water/Electricity/Gas, all cost money to produce and maintain, so it makes sense for them to charge more for usage, the internet has always been free, no limits, no restrictions. These major corporations need to stop being greedy. Always trying to make the big bucks.
 
We need transparency between all parties
We need to know what our speeds are and data limits (disclosed)
We need healthy competition


I like the idea of data buckets, but I also like the idea of unlimited connections.

ISPs should offer both and give the customer a choice, something like what's below

10Mbps\2Mbps unlimited (actually calculates out to 3TB per month) $39.99
100Mbps\20Mbps unlimited (actually calculates out to 30TB per month) $349.99

50Mbps\10Mbps 500GB per month $39.99 1TB a month for $54.99 2TB a month $84.99
100Mbps\20Mbps 1TB per month $59.99 +$30 per TB per month


Economy Residental broadband Internet option 10Mbps\2Mbps 150GB $24.99 After which rate limited to 5\1 until billing cycle ends.
 
Truth!

Water/Electricity/Gas, all cost money to produce and maintain, so it makes sense for them to charge more for usage, the internet has always been free, no limits, no restrictions. These major corporations need to stop being greedy. Always trying to make the big bucks.

It's not just the corporations that are being greedy, it's their cronies in the government that are looking for tax money as well. By labeling ISPs as Title II, we are going to see even more and higher taxes not only from the federal government, but local as well.

The FCC (and the rest of the Executive arm of the Federal Government) only see this as tax revenue, not some noble cause for us peons. Get real people.
 
We need transparency between all parties
We need to know what our speeds are and data limits (disclosed)
We need healthy competition


I like the idea of data buckets, but I also like the idea of unlimited connections.

ISPs should offer both and give the customer a choice, something like what's below

10Mbps\2Mbps unlimited (actually calculates out to 3TB per month) $39.99
100Mbps\20Mbps unlimited (actually calculates out to 30TB per month) $349.99

50Mbps\10Mbps 500GB per month $39.99 1TB a month for $54.99 2TB a month $84.99
100Mbps\20Mbps 1TB per month $59.99 +$30 per TB per month


Economy Residental broadband Internet option 10Mbps\2Mbps 150GB $24.99 After which rate limited to 5\1 until billing cycle ends.

I would be happy with this...
 
It cost money to maintain the internet as well where are you people getting this screwy idea that once you build it it just perpetually runs itself for free?

Second charging people for equipment doesn't work because most people don't want to dump thousands of dollars into the internet. Because part of the equipment will be running the line to your house.

The fairest way to charge for internet is and always has been to charge for data, you can dream up any scheme you want but no other system is perfectly dynamic and allows low volume and high volume users to pay for the portion they use. No other system encourages companies to build up the network faster. It is drop dead simple if the only way the company gets more money is if you can download more stuff they will build to make sure capacity is not the problem. Every other system has a loop hole or flaw that allows either consumers or cable companies to abuse the system and forces companies to put artificial limits on the system. The only reason people here are fighting this is because you are probably people who are abusing the current system.
 
It cost money to maintain the internet as well where are you people getting this screwy idea that once you build it it just perpetually runs itself for free?

Second charging people for equipment doesn't work because most people don't want to dump thousands of dollars into the internet. Because part of the equipment will be running the line to your house.

See, thats what the monthly fee is for. The ISP buys all the gear to create something that people want, and then people pay them a fee for service over time. Eventually the monthly payments add up to more than the ISP initially paid, and thus, the ISP makes money. All that money that was going towards paying off their initial investment can now be used for maintenance and improvements.


The fairest way to charge for internet is and always has been to charge for data, you can dream up any scheme you want but no other system is perfectly dynamic and allows low volume and high volume users to pay for the portion they use. No other system encourages companies to build up the network faster. It is drop dead simple if the only way the company gets more money is if you can download more stuff they will build to make sure capacity is not the problem. Every other system has a loop hole or flaw that allows either consumers or cable companies to abuse the system and forces companies to put artificial limits on the system. The only reason people here are fighting this is because you are probably people who are abusing the current system.

Charging for data makes no sense at all. If I peg my connection at 100% utilization for two weeks, and then stop once I hit the cap, my impact on the network will be far worse than someone who operates at 50% for four weeks.

When looking at bandwidth utilization you HAVE to look at the instantaneous impact, and not the total bits transferred. Total data transferred means nothing.
 
See, thats what the monthly fee is for. The ISP buys all the gear to create something that people want, and then people pay them a fee for service over time. Eventually the monthly payments add up to more than the ISP initially paid, and thus, the ISP makes money. All that money that was going towards paying off their initial investment can now be used for maintenance and improvements.

No all that extra money can now got to profit, in this system the one we have now there is very little incentive to upgrade other than competition stealing subscriptions from you. In a charge / GB scenario there is a huge incentive to upgrade to make sure that customers are never limited in how many GBs they can pay for.

Charging for data makes no sense at all. If I peg my connection at 100% utilization for two weeks, and then stop once I hit the cap, my impact on the network will be far worse than someone who operates at 50% for four weeks.

When looking at bandwidth utilization you HAVE to look at the instantaneous impact, and not the total bits transferred. Total data transferred means nothing.

There is no cap in charge / GB, you pay for whatever you use. And you can divide up utilization times to get people who say just want to download a game for tomorrow to set their computers to do it in off peak hours when the price / GB is cheaper. The reason our networks can't handle bursts in traffic is because they have no incentive to upgrade them. Instead in the past due to unlimited internet plans the way they slowed you down was to throttle you or just keep the infrastructure old. Wouldn't it be nice to know that you can download a movie at 1GB/S and have it streaming instantly in 4k you just have to pay for it? Vs how it is now where you have no option to go any faster because the company has no incentive to upgrade the lines. Wouldn't it be nice to know that you can run a game or movie server out of your house because there are no limits on your TOS that were put there just to make it so you cant actually use your unlimited internet?

It is hilarious how all of you keep blindly defending this dreamy idea that the internet connections are free to run as much as you want yet you completely ignore the fact that that is EXACTLY how you have been paying for internet for the last 10 years and the result is that the companies have not done jack shit with the money they made off you. But anytime someone suggests a logical alternative you claim their idea doesn't make any sense. I have a decade of evidence to tell you that unlimited internet does not incentivize companies to upgrade, you have nothing but utopian foolery from imaginary lands.


Back in the 56K days the price of a minute crashed rapidly as it was the bar that everyone measured an ISP by and ISPs could compete on that. In the days of the long distance and cell phone wars the same thing happened. When we moved over to unlimited in any of these sectors we saw the companies try to slow us down, put in place artificial limits, etc... Anyone who hosts websites knows that the ones which give you unlimited storage suck and have a lack of flexibility, why so many people can be so blind to these trends is mind boggling. And the whole point of tiered plans is to screw you into overage charges when you go over, or get you to overpay when you don't use very much. In the past the reason companies gave you unlimited was because they knew 99% of their customers weren't using hardly anything. It wasn't because they were nice it was because they were screwing everyone over.
 
No all that extra money can now got to profit, in this system the one we have now there is very little incentive to upgrade other than competition stealing subscriptions from you. In a charge / GB scenario there is a huge incentive to upgrade to make sure that customers are never limited in how many GBs they can pay for.



There is no cap in charge / GB, you pay for whatever you use. And you can divide up utilization times to get people who say just want to download a game for tomorrow to set their computers to do it in off peak hours when the price / GB is cheaper. The reason our networks can't handle bursts in traffic is because they have no incentive to upgrade them. Instead in the past due to unlimited internet plans the way they slowed you down was to throttle you or just keep the infrastructure old. Wouldn't it be nice to know that you can download a movie at 1GB/S and have it streaming instantly in 4k you just have to pay for it? Vs how it is now where you have no option to go any faster because the company has no incentive to upgrade the lines. Wouldn't it be nice to know that you can run a game or movie server out of your house because there are no limits on your TOS that were put there just to make it so you cant actually use your unlimited internet?

It is hilarious how all of you keep blindly defending this dreamy idea that the internet connections are free to run as much as you want yet you completely ignore the fact that that is EXACTLY how you have been paying for internet for the last 10 years and the result is that the companies have not done jack shit with the money they made off you. But anytime someone suggests a logical alternative you claim their idea doesn't make any sense. I have a decade of evidence to tell you that unlimited internet does not incentivize companies to upgrade, you have nothing but utopian foolery from imaginary lands.


Back in the 56K days the price of a minute crashed rapidly as it was the bar that everyone measured an ISP by and ISPs could compete on that. In the days of the long distance and cell phone wars the same thing happened. When we moved over to unlimited in any of these sectors we saw the companies try to slow us down, put in place artificial limits, etc... Anyone who hosts websites knows that the ones which give you unlimited storage suck and have a lack of flexibility, why so many people can be so blind to these trends is mind boggling. And the whole point of tiered plans is to screw you into overage charges when you go over, or get you to overpay when you don't use very much. In the past the reason companies gave you unlimited was because they knew 99% of their customers weren't using hardly anything. It wasn't because they were nice it was because they were screwing everyone over.

There are exactly 0 people in this thread arguing that it costs $0 to maintain a network, so i'm not sure why you keep mentioning it.

Why would competing on price per bit be any more successful than the current system, which is "competing" on total throughput? How is being able to make up whatever number they want to charge us at going to be "a huge incentive to upgrade" when none of the big ISPs have any competition?

Webhosts offering "Unlimited storage" has nothing to do with internet access. I don't even know what to do with this information.

You can't "use" a GB. That concept is fundamentally flawed. Bits do not wear down the copper/glass wires they travel on, and an old bit is worth no less than a newly minted one. ISPs do not have big pools of bits, and they don't dole out cups of bits to their customers.

Charging per minute "worked" back in the day with phone systems because you were tying up an actual circuit when using your phone line. No one else could use the same copper pair as you while you did, so it made sense to bill per minute.

Your hypothetical scenario still requires the ISPs to upgrade all their hardware to support downloading a "movie at 1GB/S and have it streaming instantly in 4k". If they did that, then they wouldn't need to charge per bit because their network would no longer be saturated. You're saying we should all give the ISPs more money because they will definitely use it to upgrade their networks this time. They promise. For realsies this time.
 
Really if ISPs want to go capping people they should offer a choice.

1: You pay extra per GB
2: You are automatically bumped to the next tier
3: Your speed is dropped, there could be various speed tiers that you keep dropping to if you use too much.

That way rich people can pick 1 or 2 while people who don't want to have to worry about how much downloading/uploading they do just pick 3.

Also the caps need to be much more reasonable than they are now days. Caps should be in the TB not GB. I have a 50/30 mb connection, I can download a couple TB in a couple days. Thankfully mine is uncapped though, but with all the drastic changes the government and corporations want to do to the internet these days I'm afraid one of these days that might change. On the other hand they used to cap the higher packages like 80 and up but they got rid of those. So it seems my ISP is pretty reasonable about that. You can get 250/30 uncapped even.
 
There are exactly 0 people in this thread arguing that it costs $0 to maintain a network, so i'm not sure why you keep mentioning it.

Why would competing on price per bit be any more successful than the current system, which is "competing" on total throughput? How is being able to make up whatever number they want to charge us at going to be "a huge incentive to upgrade" when none of the big ISPs have any competition?

Webhosts offering "Unlimited storage" has nothing to do with internet access. I don't even know what to do with this information.

You can't "use" a GB. That concept is fundamentally flawed. Bits do not wear down the copper/glass wires they travel on, and an old bit is worth no less than a newly minted one. ISPs do not have big pools of bits, and they don't dole out cups of bits to their customers.

Charging per minute "worked" back in the day with phone systems because you were tying up an actual circuit when using your phone line. No one else could use the same copper pair as you while you did, so it made sense to bill per minute.

Your hypothetical scenario still requires the ISPs to upgrade all their hardware to support downloading a "movie at 1GB/S and have it streaming instantly in 4k". If they did that, then they wouldn't need to charge per bit because their network would no longer be saturated. You're saying we should all give the ISPs more money because they will definitely use it to upgrade their networks this time. They promise. For realsies this time.

I am really not sure how this is complicated. I listed multiple very easy examples of how and why a company would have incentive to upgrade. So I will break it down super easy for you.

Jack wants to watch a 4k video on Saturday night and is willing to pay for it. Jack tries and fails due to slow American connection. Jack doesn't pay for 40 GBs of a 4K video. See simple now the cable company misses out on an opportunity to sell 40 GBs of data because their network was too slow. So the execs get together and solve the problem because that is what these execs are really really good at and the decide to upgrade connections speeds to 1 GB fiber, now Jack goes to watch the video he doesn't even have to wait, he actually watches 2 videos that night instead of just one because he can actually fit that it since he didn't have to wait for it to buffer a huge amount of data.
In this case it is painfully obvious that a new level of competition forms, it is internal competition for your time and your network usage. Every second you are not waiting for the network is a second you could be paying them more money. Service quality including ping time and uptime all become important to the ISP, service abilities all go up because the more you use the better it is for their bottom line, every incentive switches from trying to stop you from doing things to trying to get you to do things. That is the internet I want to have, that is the internet I want to be on and I would gladly pay for that rather than the shit we have now.
 
See, thats what the monthly fee is for. The ISP buys all the gear to create something that people want, and then people pay them a fee for service over time. Eventually the monthly payments add up to more than the ISP initially paid, and thus, the ISP makes money. All that money that was going towards paying off their initial investment can now be used for maintenance and improvements.




Charging for data makes no sense at all. If I peg my connection at 100% utilization for two weeks, and then stop once I hit the cap, my impact on the network will be far worse than someone who operates at 50% for four weeks.

When looking at bandwidth utilization you HAVE to look at the instantaneous impact, and not the total bits transferred. Total data transferred means nothing.

I don't see this re-occuring repeatedly. No one likes to be slowed down. So either the user will start operating closer to 50% for for weeks or IF they have the choice upgrade their data cap and run 100% for 4 weeks.

This was part of my suggested "buy slower unlimited or buy data by the bucket".

But the prices I suggested earlier will not occur in most markets without healthy competition.
 
I don't see this re-occuring repeatedly. No one likes to be slowed down. So either the user will start operating closer to 50% for for weeks or IF they have the choice upgrade their data cap and run 100% for 4 weeks.

This was part of my suggested "buy slower unlimited or buy data by the bucket".

But the prices I suggested earlier will not occur in most markets without healthy competition.

But there won't be healthy competition because of all the deals made with local municipalities and all the non-compete deals that have been made to create monopolies.

Why do you think prices are so high now? I mean come on, you know prices are high when profits are over $18,000,000,000 a year for some telcos.... that's profit, not sales.... 18 BILLION. Those bits must be soooo expensive to transmit and still take home 18 BILLION dollars......

At that profit ratio we should all have 5g unlimited data for $30/MO and 1Gb fiber internet access for $15/MO.

50B in sales = 18B in profit. Yes, some of that will be reinvested into building out a network, but maintance on the existing network was nowhere near cutting into that profit.
 
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Which is why.... if you read my original post, way back at the beginning....

We need to implement regulation again and be smart enough to allow for a period of exclusivity when deploying to a new market.

If reclassifying internet infrastructure providers as a utility is what is required to do that....well I guess that is what we will have to do.
 
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I don't think anyone is arguing billing changes alone will solve anything. Introducing competition in to the marketplace is the best remedy for everything. Billing changes for pay per use would be nice price transparency though.

One other benefit of a usage model is that an ISP can only generate so much money off a given pieces of infrastructure. They can oversubscribe all they like but in a usage model that infrastructure will only move so many billable bits. In order to generate more revenue they upgrade. I also like the idea of only paying for what the ISP actual delivers to me and receives from me, if the connection goes to shit every day at 6PM, that's just lost revenue potential by not meeting demand. Opposed to right now where not meeting demand has no immediate drawback for the ISP.

None of this matters with out a healthy marketplace first though.
 
I am really not sure how this is complicated. I listed multiple very easy examples of how and why a company would have incentive to upgrade. So I will break it down super easy for you.

Jack wants to watch a 4k video on Saturday night and is willing to pay for it. Jack tries and fails due to slow American connection. Jack doesn't pay for 40 GBs of a 4K video. See simple now the cable company misses out on an opportunity to sell 40 GBs of data because their network was too slow. So the execs get together and solve the problem because that is what these execs are really really good at and the decide to upgrade connections speeds to 1 GB fiber, now Jack goes to watch the video he doesn't even have to wait, he actually watches 2 videos that night instead of just one because he can actually fit that it since he didn't have to wait for it to buffer a huge amount of data.
In this case it is painfully obvious that a new level of competition forms, it is internal competition for your time and your network usage. Every second you are not waiting for the network is a second you could be paying them more money. Service quality including ping time and uptime all become important to the ISP, service abilities all go up because the more you use the better it is for their bottom line, every incentive switches from trying to stop you from doing things to trying to get you to do things. That is the internet I want to have, that is the internet I want to be on and I would gladly pay for that rather than the shit we have now.


This model seems to be working fantastically for the cellular market. I mean, we all have gigabit per second connections to our phones since we pay per bit, right? Oh wait, no we don't. If you want to download 40GB of data to your phone, it costs $400 a month. Great plan, i'm excited to be a part of it. The cellular ISPs actually compete with each other, and the consumer is still getting raped with the pay-per-bit model.
 
This model seems to be working fantastically for the cellular market. I mean, we all have gigabit per second connections to our phones since we pay per bit, right? Oh wait, no we don't. If you want to download 40GB of data to your phone, it costs $400 a month. Great plan, i'm excited to be a part of it. The cellular ISPs actually compete with each other, and the consumer is still getting raped with the pay-per-bit model.

cellular I don't think is part of this discussion and it does have a very finite (and limited) about of RF bandwidth available so I can understand the desire to ease network congestion... they can't just make more RF bandwidth vs running more fiber or upgrading equipment like a non wireless service can

and I've pulled 40GB through my T-Mobile phone on my unlimited plan without issue
 
Could be because wireless Cell tower bandwidth is not as cheap or accessible as fiber bandwidth.
 
Could be because wireless Cell tower bandwidth is not as cheap or accessible as fiber bandwidth.

no I thought it was clear in my post, internet bandwidth and rf bandwidth are completely different things even though they use the same word

there is only so much RF spectrum...
 
no I thought it was clear in my post, internet bandwidth and rf bandwidth are completely different things even though they use the same word

there is only so much RF spectrum...

I was responding to [wizdum's] post...not yours. You posted before I finished editing and posting. ;)
 
cellular I don't think is part of this discussion and it does have a very finite (and limited) about of RF bandwidth available so I can understand the desire to ease network congestion... they can't just make more RF bandwidth vs running more fiber or upgrading equipment like a non wireless service can

and I've pulled 40GB through my T-Mobile phone on my unlimited plan without issue

You are correct that RF can be a limiting factor, however its not the current cause. When LTE and 4G were initially rolled out people were getting 40mbps+, now Verizon is advertising 5 - 12mbps. Adding more customers does not use any more spectrum. The number of people using the service increased and the ISPs failed to upgrade their networks to maintain the same speed.
 
You are correct that RF can be a limiting factor, however its not the current cause. When LTE and 4G were initially rolled out people were getting 40mbps+, now Verizon is advertising 5 - 12mbps. Adding more customers does not use any more spectrum. The number of people using the service increased and the ISPs failed to upgrade their networks to maintain the same speed.

it's not that it CAN be the limiting factor... it IS the limiting factor... more users can't use more spectrum because the providers simply don't have it... but more users means more contention for that spectrum... lets say they had enough spectrum to deliver 100mbits... if 100 people are on it using it 100% they can all get 1 mbit... it's not a 100mbit connection between you and the tower, the rf bandwidth is shared therefore the network speed is also shared... does not matter if they have 10gbits at the tower there is no way they can put that amount of data over the air with current tech
 
This model seems to be working fantastically for the cellular market. I mean, we all have gigabit per second connections to our phones since we pay per bit, right? Oh wait, no we don't. If you want to download 40GB of data to your phone, it costs $400 a month. Great plan, i'm excited to be a part of it. The cellular ISPs actually compete with each other, and the consumer is still getting raped with the pay-per-bit model.

For what its worth, Mobile ISPs are not using the same pay for usage model being talked about in this thread.

Under current Mobile ISP data buckets you pay for the data whether you use it or not. You pay for that 10GB even if the network is shitty when you want to use it. In this case the mobile ISP can continue to oversell their bandwidth as much as they can and make revenue from it.

Under a real pay per usage plan only bits actually moved would be billable so the only way to increase revenue would be upgrading the network.
 
Under a real pay per usage plan only bits actually moved would be billable so the only way to increase revenue would be upgrading the network.

Or just increase prices, because theres still no competition.

Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking with the "Adding more customers does not use any more spectrum.". Thats what I get for trying to post quickly. While mobile ISPs have a lot more control over their frequencies than those of us on the public bands, they will still hit a wall eventually.
 
Or just increase prices, because theres still no competition.

Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking with the "Adding more customers does not use any more spectrum.". Thats what I get for trying to post quickly. While mobile ISPs have a lot more control over their frequencies than those of us on the public bands, they will still hit a wall eventually.

Not disagreeing with you on that. Competition is needed before any sort of healthy market can develop.
 
Truth is stranger than fiction. Seems Cogent got caught "prioritizing" traffic in a way that suppressed Netflix throughput to Comcast, AT&T and Verizon, the stats were bad, and Mr. Hastings knew where his traffic was being throttled when he made his complaints to the FCC. No wonder it was almost exclusively the ISPs Netflix used Cogent to reach that looked "bad". So things are not so black and white as the do gooders and neutrality "advocates" seem to think. Go figure.

See here.
 
Truth is stranger than fiction. Seems Cogent got caught "prioritizing" traffic in a way that suppressed Netflix throughput to Comcast, AT&T and Verizon, the stats were bad, and Mr. Hastings knew where his traffic was being throttled when he made his complaints to the FCC. No wonder it was almost exclusively the ISPs Netflix used Cogent to reach that looked "bad". So things are not so black and white as the do gooders and neutrality "advocates" seem to think. Go figure.

See here.

That still doesn't explain Level3's complaints. Trust me everyone knows about Cogent their wannabe tier 1 dreams and the stupid things they do, doesn't mean Verizon and AT&T can't also be bad.
 
All I know is that there is still an ipv4 peering problem between a large isp in the us and cognent and level3. The ipv4 path to 2 of my offsite server maxes out at 1mbit, the ipv6 path will max out my 45mbit connection. The packet loss and high ping times have been traced to the handoff point. The ipv4 and ipv6 handoff share the same physcial link too, so it's not a bandwidth problem.

Funny thing is that my servers are connected through what would be considered a "wholesale" link. Proof in my eyes that more than cognent has been priortizing traffic unfairly.
 
I am in favor of anything that encourages more competition. Until that happens, everything else is a moot point.
 
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