Net neutrality: III
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- If there’s one thing that’s a given, IMO, it’s that to be free, the Net has to be neutral.
And that’s to say it should be totally out of control.
I’ve been online for close to 15 years, but I hadn’t paid much attention to the phrase ‘net neutrality’ before p2pnet’s Ottawa Gal opened up the throttling scandal in her Bell Sympatico P2P Black List in which she said, “Bell-Sympatico is now doing two things: following the Rogers lead: Traffic shaping/throttling and degrading users speed profiles.”
Traffic shaping equals censorship, something which happens in places where the Net is non-neutral.
Thanks largely to Ottawa Gal’s post, the issue is now front and center in Canada, also bringing net neutrality — something the average person had until then heard little of — to the fore.
Ottawa law professor Michael Geist once summed it up like this »»»
… at the core is the commitment to ensuring that Internet service providers treat all content and applications equally with no privileges, degrading of service or prioritization based on the content’s source, ownership or destination.
‘It’s yours. You created it.’
Net neutrality is an issue affecting everyone, everywhere, and p2pnet contributor and frequent poster Tom Koltai was one of the first people to start up as a provider of internet services in Australia. He doesn’ t, however, believe net neutrality is possible and in ‘There’s no such thing, stated »»»
There’s something about owning/running a network you built every step of the way the Telcos/RBOCs will never quite grok. You know every point of failure, potential failure, chewing gum and shoelace repair location in the whole network. It’s yours. You created it. Therefore, when some little kid comes along with Napster and tries to take it down by filling up all the MRTG graphs, you start a battle of wits.
It’s you versus the kid. He wants to rape your entire bandwidth and you have another 25,000 customers don’t really want him too. So you watch graphs, you reconfigure routers; you purchase expensive $24,000 Alteon smart switches so you can traffic shape the little kid.
However, he gets his mates in on the Napster thing. Suddenly there’s not just one leak in the dam; the whole network in multiple locations around the country is holier than a set of fishnet stockings. You’re left with no choice: all the Napster traffic has to be routed via an alternative source. You buy a satellite feed and divert all the P2P traffic straight out the dish on top of the roof to Pas-8.
Hah! fixed his wagon and his little mates. They’re now Sprint’s problem. The other customers click on blissfully unaware you just single-handedly fought off the invading Mongol hordes to ensure the MRTG graph didn’t blip over 90 %
What’s all this about? There’s no such thing as net neutrality. Anybody who thinks there’s should with 19 other people squeeze into one 9 metre square washroom with a single toilet bowl and tell them this is the only opportunity they’ll have for 72 hours to go to the toilet – and they only have two minutes (for all 20) in which to do it in. Can’t be done.
Predictably, Tom’s post produced a storm of protest and in response, among other things, “Wow – I get 9 hours sleep and you guys flood me,” he posted in a comment to his first article, continuing »»»
@Devil’s Advocate Says: July 2nd, 2009 at 1:11 pm
“…when some little kid comes along with Napster and tries to take it down…”
Shortsightedness (or lack of foresight) always seems to be followed by transfer of blame.
There are very obvious reasons providers would even have to think of traffic management.
1) They didn’t anticipate the growth rate, so SUFFICIENT RESOURCES weren’t built in;
2) They continued to OVERSELL what they already couldn’t provide, by an astronomical factor;
3) They began operating an array of THEIR OWN CONTENT services, and needed to steal back some of the resources they didn’t have.
@RW – you forgot the fourth thing.
4) Bandwidth to the USA for countries not in the USA costs a bloody fortune. In fact to be precise, 1n 1994 I was paying $88,000 for a 2 Megabyte link (that’s one DSL connection worth of bandwidth) from Sydney to Coos Bay Oregon. So don’t try to tell me that I wasnt warranted in trying to stop little Johnny. I was.
The arrogance of Americans and Canadians in regards to the amount of bandwidth available and what it shoud cost is amazing. The orignal Internet was USA concentric – that is no longer necessarily the case – yet it is cheaper often to buy a link from singapore to America than from singapore to Malaysia (just across the harbour).
Outside of the USA ISP’s have to backhaul 10,000 miles in some instances just to connect. To have that backhaul used up by just 2 or 5 or 10 users is bullshit. That is reality.
There are 6 billion people in this world of those only 335 million live on the American Northern Continent. Why is it that the American minority see fit to instill their standards, expectations and consumer waste habits on the rest of the world ?
/Angry Rant Mode /off
‘Net Neutrality is most threatened when an entity has absolute control’
In ‘No such thing as net neutrality’: II Rocky Gaudrault, CEO of Canada’s TekSavvy, stated »»»
From where I sit, if the demand goes up, you up your network capacity to accommodate.
Controlling how individuals surf in order to not keep investing isn’t the way to go. There are plenty of opportunities to make money, even when the demand goes up.
Net Neutrality is most threatened when an entity has absolute control (and no transparency) on the population’s ability to have online choice.
I think different ISPs should have the ability to provide different choices for internet access (as we do — a capped and an unlimited service). In my mind, so long as choice exists (which is what Bell and the like are trying to remove), the population can select, knowingly being aware of what they’re getting.
I also think some of the discussion Tom speaks of doesn’t consider the varying technologies.
Cable is affected in clusters (by locale) but DSL isn’t, so disproportionate use becomes very technology specific and pretty much subjective.
Bottom line, if you control traffic in any obstructive way (slowing/stopping/filtering/etc), it’s for profit margins, or to disadvantage competition. So from a law or regulatory perspective, I’d say, if an ISP doesn’t believe in Net Neutrality principles that’s fine.
But if they’re a regulated monopoly regulated to strictly be a dumb pipe or unbiased carrier, they have an obligation to not impose their retail way of business on other ISPs.
It’s anti-competitive!
In another Reader’s Write, “You guys make me laugh,” says Tom. “Not because you’re wrong, but because you are right. I wonder how many of you have read the brothers Karamazov or the thoughts of Mao Tse Tung or the Wisdom of Marxism?” – adding »»»
I went to school in a communist regime and received my Doctorate in Economics from the same communist regime. (Now there’s a non-sequiter.)
The peculiarity is that Economics is essentially based on consumer demand, a regulated market and profiting from the opprtunities.
Net Neutrality is a socialist policy and whilst in a perfect world, I would agree with it entirely, It doesnt work for the same reason I cant drive my old 7 series down the freeway at 200 miles per hour – regulatory interdiction.
On the freeway it’s the police, on the Net its the meet-me rooms, the internet exchanges, the upstream and downstream fair use policies, the number of ports available for traffic exchange, the port size of those ports (T1, T3, OC-3, OC-??) the backplane at Mae-West, Mae-East.
Throttling bandwidth to ensure that every member of the proletariat can equally use the bandwidth is also a socialistic policy.
So essentially we have a bunch of Capitalists (the ISP’s & RBOC’s) utilising and espousing comunist tactics to maximise their capitalist earnings and we have bunch of social democrat (users) screaming unfair distribution to the co-operative.
I have to smile.
As for Rocky; I have to commend you dude. That’s a wonderful stand to take.
I offerred internet access (initially to friends and family (1986) and then to the whole of Australia (1992-94), which expanded across the pond in 1995 to Oregon, Washington State, Utah and California and yeah we even crossed the Border at Rock Ridge into BC…… (infra red T1’s). I stoped servicing clients in 2001.
After 15 years as an ISP – come back to me and tell me that you still agree with Net Neutrality.
At one stage I had 25,000 users utilising a 64 kbps connection to the USA and we were (ausnet services) voted best ISP in Australia 6 months in a row by APC magazine.
Communism in Russia failed. A remodelled Social Democratic type of Socialism survives in some European Countries today. When you can understand why pure Marxism failed – you will also understand why Net Neutrality is a dream. The short answer is that there will always be a group of Capitalists that feel they deserve more of the pie than is their fair share.
Yeah yeah – bake a bigger pie…… is an empty rhetoric.
I am happy to debate this subject further on either side of the equation (I too would like net neutrality to be a realistic dream) with anyone that has had more than 20,000 customers located on more than one continent (with the continents seperated by a body of water called an ocean. in other words the five lakes does’nt do it.)
Anyone else just doesnt really have a “clue”.
heh heh – Red flag hung on clothesline…. waiting for bull to notice.
‘There’s nothing ’socialistic’ about throttling’
As of 9:45 am today, the thread continues in part »»»
Thomas Koltai Says: July 4th, 2009 at 4:04 am
Postcript: BTW – at no time have I said stop using P2P software. This article arose from my suggestion that net neutrality would become potentially more real if everyone throttled their down and up transfers and placed a hop limitation on their peers. Don’t keep shooting the messenger (err me) think about the logic of what I have said. Don’t bitch about what you can’t change – ask how can you impact positively the network to bring anout the change that you desire? My job is to make you think. Regardless of what you think of my comments – there is now a seed of logical doubt in your minds – let it grow. And keep using that P2P software.
Dreddsnik Says: July 4th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
” Regardless of what you think of my comments – there is now a seed of logical doubt in your minds – let it grow. ”
No, there isn’t.
Devil’s Advocate Says: July 4th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
@Tom: Yes, you often DO make some of us think. Unfortunately, this curious comparison of Net Neutrality to Communism/Socialism/Marxism only causes any functionally-thinking person to simply scratch his head, wondering WTF you’ve been smokin’ lately! (Probably a more plausible explanation of why you’d be laughing as well.) Net Neutrality is no dream. The Internet began with it. Much of it is still intact, however, corporate interference is attempting to take it away, and causing us to defend it. However, these corporates didn’t create the Internet, and only own parts of it that CAN be replaced. Most of them are clinging to the idea that seizing control of certain elements of the Internet will save their butts from sinking with their failing business models. It won’t work.
There’s nothing “socialistic” about throttling. In order to have a socialist act, you still need an accepted authority to initiate it. Providers don’t have the authority (at least in North America) to interfere with data, nor do they own the data itself. Throttling is a senseless activity that is counterproductive to a mission of keeping data moving. Using “throttling” and “network management” in the same sentence only creates an oxymoron. I’m sure the providers that engage in throttling know this as well, and have an ulterior motive behind it all…
Step 1: Keep spewing the “P2P steals everyone’s bandwidth” propaganda to justify network interference.
(Already done)
Step 2: Keep kissing MAFIAA butt and give creedance to their “P2P users are all thieves” propaganda, to justify spying. (Already done)
Step 3: Convince governments about the need to increase providers’ control over data, to curb “illegal downloading”, “IP theft” and “network congestion” (maybe throw in “child pornography” for good measure?), thus opening the door for a mass blessing of their use of DPI technology. (In progress!)
Results:
- DPI becomes widely accepted.
- warrantless spying becomes acceptable.
- arbitrary traffic shaping becomes acceptable.
- anti-competitive behaviour by large mainstream providers becomes virtually impossible to challenge.
The idea that users are somehow responsible for the mess is the “empty rhetoric” that is widely used to deflect the fact (as you continue to do, by the way, Tom) that subscribers were sold a service they’re not getting, and the agreement between the customer and the business is being violated.
Providers are only “distribution nodes” that we’ve allowed to evolve into something way too important-seeming. The reality is, everything a provider does with its network impacts the rest of the world network in some way. If they don’t summarily allow an unfettered, free flow of information through their own pipes, they’re doing the rest of the world a complete disservice.
Traffic processed by a provider is certainly not comprised of only their own subscribers. If providers are allowed to tamper with or examine any of this data on an ongoing basis, they really should need the rest of the world’s permission to do so.
That won’t work either.
Tom, I really don’t know where you were going here. You profess to be a “proponent of P2P” and “just the messenger”, yet you repeat some of the same corporate BS that has already been debunked ad nauseum.
1) “Don’t bitch about what you can’t change” (??) I would direct that one back at the corporates, who are trying to TAKE AWAY Net Neutrality. Anyway, who TF says anything here can’t be changed?!
2) “I am happy to debate this subject… with anyone that has had more than 20,000 customers…Anyone else just doesnt really have a ‘clue’.” What?! You think this is a matter that can only be debated by PROVIDERS??
Not only is that disingenuous to the masses, but totally inappropriate and stinking of some strange misdirected elitism.
You can debate the technical aspects of network provision all you want – it has virtually nothing to do with the Net Neutrality debate. In the end, you’re still avoiding the questions of reneging on a business agreement with your customers, and whether or not a provider should have the right to interfere with everyone’s data (the heart of the debate).
3) “I cant drive my old 7 series down the freeway at 200 miles per hour” This is a pretty feeble analogy. Did anyone do anything to give you the impression you could do this! Is anyone else on that freeway supposed to do that, either! You enter the freeway under ADVERTISED CONDITIONS… the speed limit, and the Law. This is a complete contrast to many providers, who continually, to this day, advertise “always fast”, “unlimited”, “download large files, streaming video and other rich media”, yet pull the rug out from under you for doing just that.
As for the “communist/marxist/socialist” references you’ve made, I can only put that down to possible sleep deprivation on your part.
…But, it did almost make me laugh.
‘Fire the guys who didn’t see the growth …’
Finally, I asked Rocky if he had any more thoughts on the issue and,”Hmm,” he said, “Not sure why he [Tom] chose this path but in the first article he is pretty well arguing with himself as in, “all ISPs don’t have to throttle”.
He goes on »»»
All ISPs who want to create service tiers and try to oversell need to throttle, yes. I suspect the argument would become more about Business Models as to why one would or would not “need” to throttle.
The second one is as easy as day…. “POOR NETWORK MANAGEMENT”.
If they got caught with their pants down, then that’s their problem. Fire the guys who didn’t see the growth and didn’t properly manage the network and get competent people in there to do it right. It indeed does take time to turn up larger or more connections but it also takes time to implement/configure throttling equipment.
You can see network trends months out so requesting appropriate network resources shouldn’t be all that difficult. Also, if you follow the old rule of thumb of “network due diligence” then you’re looking at things daily and can see the weaknesses in your setup.
Graphing and monitoring and a little over capacity planning to buy you the necessary time to upgrade generally gives you sufficient space to prepare for a worst case scenario.
Otherwise, if you happen to get too many sales in one shot and land up with too many people on at one time, then you have to make the difficult decision: cause your current client base to start having network congestion while you upgrade; or, do the customer-friendly thing and put a stop to selling new connections while you get upgrades done.
“In, either case the customer has to come first,” Rocky states.
“They aren’t are adversaries. They’re our income!”
And by way of a PS, Rocky has just told me in an email, “TekSavvy has 70,000 billable, of which 45,000 are DSL specific.”
Stay tuned.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
July, 2009
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July 5th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
“…if the demand goes up, you up your network capacity.”
“If they got caught with their pants down, then that’s their problem.”
“…if you control traffic in any obstructive way (slowing/stopping/filtering/etc), it’s for profit margins, or to disadvantage competition.”
“…do the customer-friendly thing and put a stop to selling new connections while you get upgrades done.”
“…the customer has to come first. They aren’t are adversaries. They’re our income!”
Rocky is a shining example (and sadly, maybe the only current example I can find!) of a provider that “gets it”… ALL of it!… and OPERATES by it. Interestingly enough (take notice, Tom Koltai!…), Rocky is operating this way, despite the fact that he is on the receiving end of a barrage of Bell anti-competitive obstacles!
In other words, Tom, no matter what “excuses” Rocky could use to take it all out on his customers, he DOESN’T!
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: We need more “Rockys” in this game!
July 5th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
whatever happened to the ISPs ‘demanding’ they be treated like dumb pipes. The whole copyright angle is so fucked up. An equivelant arguement would be that car manufacturers are liable for DUI, or telecom providers liable for using the telephone for drug deals.
How is it that the MAFIAA can invent harm by a provider, but other tangible goods cannot. They swear intellictual goods are equal to tangible goods in their ‘one copy is theft’. If that is the ideology, then why cannot users sell their ‘used’ mp3s back to the establishment they purchased them from?
its all a one-sided farce that is so fucked up it HAS to fail. wake the fuck up sheeple!
die MAIFAA, die
stfw
July 5th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Does it really surprise anyone when ISPs that offer premium-rate content (which competes directly with P2P in both bandwidth and lost profits) seek to poison competing products … like Bittorrent?
These ISPs are just acting in their own best interests — the way any business would.
July 5th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Meanwhile throttling is in fact spreading, Charter Com., a big cable provider in the US, has obviously started packet inspection/throttling activity in the last few months. we cant get anything on torrent to go above a 30-50kB/s speed
Even when we’ve got plenty of seeds active and pushing high speeds! I pay for unlimited, and that is WTF i should be getting. They need to buy the bigger pipes or add backbone, whatever it takes to give us what we bought, not this BS “the p2p apps are hogging bandwidth, we have to throttle” BS
stfw
July 5th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
@RW…
No, it doesn’t surprise too many of us that any business would act to protect its own interests.
What does surprise every sane person is not only what lengths some businesses are willing to go to do this, but also how far they seem to be allowed to get!
It’s like it’s not just “us” against the companies…
It’s always “us” against the companies, the government, the lobbyists, the regulating bodies, the courts, and (of course) the ever-so-there-for-us-all-24/7 mainstream media.
July 5th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
“Meanwhile throttling is in fact spreading…”
“…we cant get anything on torrent to go above a 30-50kB/s speed.”
This is what kills me.
The throttlers have ALL seemed to have decided on this 30KB/s limit, opting to maybe double that at certain times.
The issue of providers “overselling” their service by at least a factor of 10 could be demonstrated here.
If you consider, a DSL home connection in Toronto from Bell typically gets about 340KB/s in download bandwidth to work with at normal times. (And, I won’t get into whether that figure itself is actually a fair allotment to the user. I’m just quoting it.) The 30KB/s limit is a reduction by a factor of a little more than 10.
This also means, as I’ve outlined before, that all those downloading at throttle times will be on the wire more than 10 times longer. And, all those downloads that are being throttled are having some packets arbitrarily discarded in the process, therefore needing to be requested and sent over again.
Then, to add to the problem, the throttling is performed for a continuous period of anywhere from 8-11 hours every day. This means that even if there’s no congestion, those on the download aren’t being given the benefit of the available bandwidth to make those tranfers in a timely fashion and “get out of the way”.
How does this qualify as traffic “management”, when they’re not doing their best to clear the line?? And, who the hell decided 30KB/s was a fair settlement to impose on their “high speed” customers for 40% of the time??
It’s high time ALL customers of ALL the throttled networks started demanding, en masse, that the Government order them a sizeable REBATE from their providers. They’ve effectively stolen back at least 30% of the service they sold, all the while continuing to collect 100% of the premium rate.
…If only we could actually get our government to hear anything we’re saying these days.
: (
But, I wonder how these providers would handle it, if a huge chunk of their subscription base withheld 1/4 of their monthly fee, in lieu of the reduced service, perhaps with an included “statement” from each customer outlining what the provider is being “billed in return” for.
July 5th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
“The throttlers have ALL seemed to have decided on this 30KB/s limit”
I believe the OECD limit on what is considered a high-speed internet connection is a minimum of 30-kB/s.
So if Bell, Rogers and whoever else throttle at 30kB/s it is still considered high-speed and is reported as such in “world reports”.
If the throttle was 25kB/s 11-hrs per day they couldn’t claim high-speed.
I’m not 100% certain of this little non-trivial fact, but I do believe this is what it is.
July 5th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Thanks for covering this debate, Jon. I think DA and “Rocky” are right on here, and the fact that Rocky is able to practice what he’s preaching takes a lot of the wind out of Tom Koltai’s sails. Even if Tom is 100% correct in his justifications (excuses?) for throttling, there is still the fact that providers here are not delivering what’s been promised.
I am continually dumbfounded by the level of dishonesty and outright deception organizations from ISPs to Big Content are allowed to get away with. You’d think that a simple grid outlining their contradictory positions in different situations would be enough to discredit everything they say, yet their word (and the word of their lobbyists) is continually accepted as fact without questioning. It’s great to have places like p2pnet where the community sees what’s going on, but it’s extraordinarily frustrating at how powerless we, the people, seem to be.
July 5th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
“…it’s extraordinarily frustrating at how powerless we, the people, seem to be.”
We’re only powerless as individuals.
In sizeable groups, we can effect change, with persistent “lobbying” of our own, and whatever necessary “civil disobedience” may be warranted to get the proper attention and strike the right concern with the right people.
It’s unfortunate that we would need to organize and find the time required, and have to educate ourselves to things we might not have to deal with in our working lives, while the corporates can make it part of their business agenda and have the “express lane” to Parliament open to them all the time.
July 5th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
@SteelWolf
Contradictory positions mean nothing in the world of corporate bidnes. Ask Microsot, Yodel, Gargoyle, Hollydud or Big Floozy.
Or it didn’t until the Net came along.
Now, stay tuned …..
Cheers!
July 5th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
News:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r22657226-TelusBell-Merge-Rumor-Say-Whaaaaaaat
Bell and Telus to merge under the new company name, Bellus, so that they can can give only one bri^h^h^h contribution to CRTC instead of two.
July 5th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
“It’s unfortunate that we would need to organize and find the time required, and have to educate ourselves to things we might not have to deal with in our working lives, while the corporates can make it part of their business agenda and have the “express lane” to Parliament open to them all the time.”
That’s the truth, and quite sad since Parliment/Congress is supposed to represent US, not business.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:04 am
Firstly ARPA.net was never net neutral.
Each University had to fund it’s own connection.
And outsiode of Missile Silos, each Milnet connection had to fund their own connection. How?
By applying for government grants.
The Internet has never been net neutral.
Someone has always had to pay. Pre-commercialisation – you guys paid through your taxes.
Now that you are users you are paying through monthly subs.
Capitalism is about paying what the market will bear.
If the customers leave – the ISP’s will change their pricing and throttling policies.
Most custmers won’t leave. Man is a creature of habit.
Air is neutral and free (mostly), Seawater in the middle of the ocean is free.
Internet is not free.
All ISP’s are constantly in a state of massive bandwidth growth.
Five years ago, P2P users 27% of allocated bandwidth.
Today it is 87% of all bandwidth allocated.Without Throttling – tommorrow it will be 99%.
Face it boys and girls, the growth of P2P is faster than the ISP’s can add bandwidth.
They can either throttle and loose a few customers – or not throttle and loose all their major clients.
A Truism for the day: No-one can add bandwidth as fast as Torrent uses it up.
Already ISP’s are offering premium guaranteed shaped (Service Level Guaranteed) services.
This will become more prevalent and is indicative of a maturing industry.
So for those of you disatisfied – ring your ISP and say – I want 5 GBps guaranteed – can you fix me up please.
They will, for a price.
Home account DSL is sold on a best efforts delivery basis – it doesnt not have an SLG attached to it.
Would I like higher connection speeds?
Sure – I’m 8 km’s from the exchange and I’m stuck on 512 kbps with 20 GB per month cap.
My business partner lives 11 kms from his exchange and he has to connect via satelite….. (about 128 Kb).
Do I believe that my downloads should fly?
They do – for about 4 hours every morning between 1:00 am and 5 am. The rest of the time – the little ratsnest of Internet users called the Antipodies (Oz) use up all of my potential bandwidth. How dare they.
You can all argue as much as you like.
Unfortunately you’re wrong – but you are all wearing rose coloured glasses.
Each one of the posters in this thread, is as guilty for causing the bottleneck forcing RBOC’s to throttle as the others not posting and just lurking.
The only way to stop throttling is to ease back on the full boar downloading AND video straming.
But I dont why I bother. You guys developed consumerism to a fine art – Everything for Americans – F*** the rest of the world.
I’m afaid, that particular fairytale is over.
@SteelWolf – You said:
“Thanks for covering this debate, Jon. I think DA and “Rocky” are right on here, and the fact that Rocky is able to practice what he’s preaching takes a lot of the wind out of Tom Koltai’s sails. Even if Tom is 100% correct in his justifications (excuses?) for throttling, there is still the fact that providers here are not delivering what’s been promised.”
I don’t throttle Steelwolf, I havent run an ISP since April 2001.
But I would be interested in how many of Rocky’s customers can still download at full speed on their bonded DSL connections ?
You see, Rocky’s argument is based on a commercial premise – “Get more customers”. I have no such agenda.
Whilst I think Rocky’s business plan is forward thinking and commendable, the RBOC’s have no choice financially but to limit and throttle.
You see, scarcity drives value. If a product is ubiquitously available at low cost, then it has no perceived value and the market collapses.
If the Net was truly net neutral, then Rocky’s arbitrage opportunity would turn to vapourware.
Beleive it or not – the more the RBOC’s throttle individual connections – the more successful Rocky’s business is – because more people will feel the need to bond DSL connections.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:24 am
Though I do not agree with throttling (Traffic Shaping) on specific protocols ie: P2P I do absolutely agree on that old acronym TANSTAAFL (There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch)
In other words.. If you use the bandwidth you pay for the bandwidth. If you go over what you have paid for (if you are on a fixed monthly rate for example) then you either get shaped down to a reasonable limit (30 to 64kbps is reasonable to allow email and basic web use) or YOU PAY MORE!
Someone said that “…if the demand goes up, you up your network capacity.” .. A nice statement though financially unworkable unless you also increase your rates for customers.
As Tom stated, it annoys EVERYONE in the world how people in the Northern Americas keep complaining on how their ISP’s are now limiting how much they can use.. Boo bloody hoo. Welcome to the Rest of the world People. Bandwidth is NOT free. The likes of AT&T et. al. are to blame for that in how they charge for international access.
Oh and the Internet did not come up with the idea of Net Neutrality. That was done way back before the Internet was commercially thought of with such things as BBS”s and that granddaddy of the UseNet – FIDONET.. Which was Not even then free to access since you needed to register with a BBS (or pay dues in an Education Institution) and that BBS had to pull the Fidonet feed off of a hub via 1200/2400bps dialup modem who received it (if lucky) twice a day via an undersea cable phone call or sometimes wonderfully free using packet radio [dependant on sunspot activity and or flying pigeons].
The equality of Net Neutrality comes down to shaping EVERYTHING not just specific protocols or Users.. So seeing that 75% of the world accepts Shaping or paying for Bandwidth.. Maybe the equity should be shown by the CAN-CONUS residents also paying their equal share so that everyone is equal in their neutrality.. Or is it shades of George Orwell again? hmmmm?
Oh and for those interested I get shaped on the Residential ADSL line after 30Gigs per Month [cost of under $40 a month] and have only ever been shaped once in my 3yrs using this package/rate and live in sunny (actually its freakin freezing at momnet) Sydney Australia. the place which is according to the latest Strategy Analytics study ( http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/06/us-20th-in-broadband-penetration-trails-s-korea-estonia.ars 0 11th in Broadband penetration, compared with the USA at 20th. And of the Top 10 countries of Broadband usage. Only Canada (yep you guys like speed too *g*) has – for the time being – no bandwidth limits .
July 6th, 2009 at 11:05 am
I find it impossible to believe that an ISP’s profit margin is to ‘tread water’ ONLY, and doesn’t include a modicum of profit. Why would you be in business if you were only in it to ‘break even’. With that fact firmly in place, the onus is on the ISP to expand your hardware, which in turn expands your reach, which in turn expands the amount of CUSTOMERS you can provide for, which in turn expands your bottom line. If you are trying to instill a false sense of prudence when it comes to your business model, please save the sob story for your pastor/rabbi/psychologist. You are a business in the 21st century, you are only in it for profit, at the behest of your customers.
First you claimed to be ‘dumb pipes’, satisfied with a modicum of profit X customer. Increase customers, increase profit. You began stuffing as many customers into the pipe as possible until the pipe got full, then you continued to stuff, and stuff, and then stuff some more in there, all in the holy crusade of profits. At one point you had to make a decision, increase the pipe size or continue to listen/lose irate customers. You ‘fix’ the system so there are limited options to customers for a provider, all in the name of ‘competition’? Am I really supposed to believe that?
Now the pipe is (over)full, and instead of expanding the capability of the pipe, you cry incessantly ‘bandwidth hogs’, boo hoo. All the while the profit margin per customer increases due to technology, better switches, better routers, FIOS, et al. You are willing to upgrade your equipment for better profits, but not for your PAYING CUSTOMERS ?!!?
I pay for electricity, it has a meter, that was all part of the agreement up front. I have internet, it doesn’t have a meter, it states I have 6Mbit/6Mbit connectivity, therefore I can use every bit in/out for however long I want 24/7 for a flat rate. This is the agreement I have, written on paper. I move ~250Gb/mo in bandwidth, utilizing 80%-90% of that pipe I pay for, therefore my provider is profiting from the bandwidth I DONT use, allowing someone else to use it, so in the end, it all balances out.
Now ISPs see the $$$ in being content providers, just look at BT throttling streaming video from other sources than its’ own, how creative. Very profitable. So in the interests of profits, not customers, you forgot you are ‘dumb pipes’, and want a piece of that profit pie at the behest of your paying audience.
You say there is no Net Neutrality, I say there will ALWAYS be Net Neutrality. Throttle port 12000, and I will move ports. Throttle packets for p2p transfers, and I will encrypt them. The internet evolves, you (ISPs) apparently do not. For every backasswards attempt to shape the internet for ever increasing profits, there will be something out there to foil your little extortion plan.
Never forget, WE the internet consumers, pay your salaries.
July 6th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
From the article: “They aren’t our adversaries. They’re our income!”
That pretty much hits the nail right on the head. If my ISP is truly so desperate to manage bandwidth by inspecting my packets and slowing down my connection, I’ll do one better to help them out. I’ll cancel my service with them so that I’m not using any bandwidth at all. Problem solved! Thankfully they don’t as far as I can tell (yet).
surfer says: “whatever happened to the ISPs ‘demanding’ they be treated like dumb pipes. The whole copyright angle is so fucked up.”
No kidding. When faced with the prospect of being legally liable for their customers surfing habits, ISP’s proclaim they are just dumb pipes and can’t be expected to monitor what every one of their customers does. Then when it’s in their own interest to inspect packets (all in the name of network management of course), they have no problem doing exactly that proving they’re not the dumb pipes they claim to be. It can’t be both ways, so which is it? I too would like to see a grid that also includes the entertainment industry and how they constantly contradict themselves when it’s in their own interest to do so.
Readers Write says: “These ISPs are just acting in their own best interests — the way any business would.”
True, but that doesn’t give a business the right to do anything they feel like. For starters there are business ethics to which they must be held responsible (for very good reason). Their right to run a business and make profits does NOT trump any of the consumers rights and especially the rights that make up the very core of freedom and liberty, an amendment to which should be net neutrality. The internet IS the people. It belongs to everyone on the planet and thus everyone should have a say in how it should be managed. Letting a handful of corporations take control and own it wouldn’t be a whole lot different than condoning slavery in my eyes, which isn’t all that far off then you realize that a lot of businesses do see consumers as nothing more than a commodity. Like surfer said, the sheeple need to wake the fuck up.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
“…ARPA.net was never net neutral”
It was DATA neutral.
The first “pillar” for building a neutral net.
And, it wasn’t DPIed, throttled, capped, or monitored.
___________________
“Capitalism is about paying what the market will bear.
If the customers leave – the ISP’s will change their pricing and throttling policies.
Most custmers won’t leave. Man is a creature of habit.”
This market has already been trying to tell these providers it won’t bear the present state.
Since customers don’t have the choice of leaving, due to the monopoly held by our providers, we’re having to challenge the whole thing at the Federal Regulator’s level.
___________________
“Internet is not free.”
No, it isn’t. WE paid for it, and WE’RE still paying for it!
Our tax dollars built the infrastructure before the Government decided it was a good idea to let Bell have it.
___________________
“…I would be interested in how many of Rocky’s customers can still download at full speed on their bonded DSL connections?”
“…the more the RBOC’s throttle individual connections – the more successful Rocky’s business is.”
Bell is throttling Rocky’s entire service, so the answer to the first one is likely “NONE”.
Throttling has made DSL bonding a somewhat “necessary” idea, but it costs Rocky and his customers who ask for it, as does the extra bandwidth Rocky would need to purchase from Bell to accommodate a reasonable level for his whole service. Seeing as he has to buy about 10 times more bandwidth for throttle times just to keep par, the second statement would have to be horseshit.
(Maybe Rocky would care to tell this man how it really plays out?)
___________________
“Five years ago, P2P users 27% of allocated bandwidth. Today it is 87% of all bandwidth allocated. Without Throttling – tommorrow it will be 99%.”
“…the growth of P2P is faster than the ISP’s can add bandwidth.”
Regardless of what hat you pulled those numbers out from, these kind of statements just go back to ignoring the basic “supply/demand/pricing” argument in favour of transferring the blame to users all over the world. These same, “greedy, selfish, whining bastards” are still paying full price for their connections, sold to them to have the capabilities they’re “guilty” of insisting on using. Has anyone, ever, been offered a rebate for the reduced service?
What really gets me about this argument, is that, from a provider’s view, it’s okay to keep taking the full payment, while…
1) reducing services contracted by that payment
2) continuing to advertise “unlimited” and “always on, always fast” connections
3) continuing to sign up new customers
4) “upping” the line speeds they’re not prepared to deliver
5) eliminating previously offered base inclusives (i.e news servers/mail servers)
6) introducing their own content services, requiring bandwidth they claim to not have for their customers
7) not investing any reasonable percentage of that money (acquired from the unreduced fees) to raising capacity
If the pipe’s so damned full, and we’re supposed to accept that and cooperate through concession, then I ask providers, why keep stuffing the pipe yourself and trying to get more people to help you do that??
[sidebar]
(And, if the money’s so tight that upgrading the network is a problem, then why has Bell been allowed to acquire yet another company just recently??)
[/sidebar]
The bottom line is, no matter what type of “technical obstacles” you want to argue about, it was the providers that made the promises, took the money, and then proceeded to renege on those promises. All other arguments are outside of this basic fact, and only serve to distract from the real issue.
Personally, this whole idea of users just “being whiners”, “expecting too much”, “needing to get real”, and “not appreciating the providers’ ever-expanding demand in today’s world” comes from the major industry players that have been caught with its pants down, in front of the nursery school window, and pulling its pud waaay to much.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
@ DA:
Good one.
Cheers!
July 6th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
(Thanks! Not too dirty for this bunch, I trust? lol)
July 6th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
” I find it impossible to believe that an ISP’s profit margin is to ‘tread water’ ONLY, and doesn’t include a modicum of profit. Why would you be in business if you were only in it to ‘break even’. ”
It’s perfectly possible, and even normal, when one uses the entertainment industry’s accounting
practices as a model.
As believable as going broke on multiillion dollar box office takes.
July 7th, 2009 at 6:25 am
I find it hard to believe that someone is saying that net neutrality is not possible.
Compare the ISP’s to a restaurant. Now compare unlimited usage (which the ISP’s are selling) to the restaurant being an all you can eat buffet.
Now when the ISP had a small number of customers, they could deliver on what they are selling. Same with the restaurant. They could keep up with a smaller number of diners that are eating there.
Next, lets assume that we increase the number of customers. If the restaurant doesn’t increase it’s capacity, then they can not serve new customers. Same with the ISP’s. If their network can not handle new customers, they should not be getting new customers until they upgrade their system to handle them. That is supposedly where the money we pay them every month goes to.
What we pay monthly is the charge on what we are buying. If they can give us what we are buying, then they should not be charging us. It is like the all you can eat buffet saying that it is all you can eat, but you can only get one plateful.
July 7th, 2009 at 8:35 am
@RW
I’d like to discuss your analogy of ISP to Restaurant.
“Compare the ISP’s to a restaurant. Now compare unlimited usage (which the ISP’s are selling) to the restaurant being an all you can eat buffet.
Now when the ISP had a small number of customers, they could deliver on what they are selling. Same with the restaurant. They could keep up with a smaller number of diners that are eating there.
Next, lets assume that we increase the number of customers. If the restaurant doesn’t increase it’s capacity, then they can not serve new customers. Same with the ISP’s. If their network can not handle new customers, they should not be getting new customers until they upgrade their system to handle them. That is supposedly where the money we pay them every month goes to.”
Great Analogy.
Now lets say that the reason for the restaurants success is two-fold – one, its great cuisine and excellent wine list and two – and this is the important distinction…. Location Location Location.
Lets say that in a built up Office Area, the restaurant lucked out and amanged to obtain Alan Bonds luxury Penthouse Apartment as it’s venue. 480 square metres of luxury aprtment atop a 40 story building in Downtown Sydney – Yep – it’s called Level 41 and is Sydneys most exclusive restaurant.
Let’s also say that the customers go there for the unique view (as well as the great food).
There is no way that restaurant can expand. The Legal firm occupying the five floors beneath the restaurant have a 20 year lease.
Your analogy just died.
The only growth the restaurant could achieve is by decresasing their meal portions and increasing their prices. Which they did.
And they became even more popular. It now requires a booking three weeks in advance for a casual diner to obtain a seating.
Remember, I said that scarcity increases value.
ISP’s, believe it or not are very often in exactly the same predicament.
For example – I once had 18 racks at PAIX. If I walked in there today and asked them for a quarter rack – they would laugh at me and point at the 3 year waiting list.
The Backlplane routers and switches at PAIX drop so many packets that the entire Internet on the west coast is always milliseconds from catastrophic failure which is only prevented by deliberately discarding (dropping) packets during peak threshold traffic patterns.
There is no possibility of building a bigger backplane switch – you have to fork peering switches into multiple switches which increases the hop count, increases latency and forces CRC retries.
Agreed that Moores Law determines that switches/CPU’s etc double every 12-18 months. The problem is that P2P is growing faster than Moores Law.
I hope that helps clarify the matter for you.
July 7th, 2009 at 9:16 am
The difference, Tom, is that your restaurant is not the only place to get food in Australia. It’s also not taking reservations for twice as many people as it can seat while refusing to cook any additional food. It’s not advertising “all you can eat” and then telling diners that arrive that they can only have one plate’s worth, because “there’s just too many people.”
DA’s most recent post is print-worthy.
July 7th, 2009 at 10:49 am
But Steelwolf,
There is only one PAIX and only Maewest and one MaeEast and one Gix and one Linx and one 55 Market St…. etc etc etc.
A juniper switch can only physically take so many ports.
When it’s full you have to use two Juniper switches and when they’re full – three, four etc.
If the Torrent you are downloading is via switch one and your isp is connected to switch 4, at 370 ms per switch hop, we just added 1.3 seconds of latency to every packet you are receiving.
Seconds Latency = MB per second decrease Per Second.
Ergo – all growth equals more switching. Each switch point is a minimum of 370 milliseconds added to your latency.
So forget the bloody restaurants. You obviously didnt understand my description that there is only one Level 41 restaurant.
Why the hell cant you guys understand simple physics ?
You can test this yourself with pings to some distant destination at different parts of the day.
Like for example….. peerates.com.
Next time you download something – open a cmd window and type tracert 000.000.000.000 (where 000.000 etc is replaced with the ip number of the seeder of the file.)
Then type ping -n 50 000.000.000.000 (Seeders IP number).
You will then understand the term latency.
If 50 pings isnt enough – change it to -n 500 for 500 pings. But remember every ping is adding to the circuits latency.
July 7th, 2009 at 11:14 am
yup he sounds exactly like the RIAA. I can’t find any reason to trust anything he says.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
The only trouble with the restaurant analogy was the paralleling.
If you didn’t have the legal right to cook for yourself, and the restaurant was the only one around, and it had already taken the reservations and the customers’ money, and then announced it couldn’t supply everyone with an “all-you-can-eat buffet”, you would then have a *closer* analogy to what the providers have done.