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A modest proposal on internet neutrality

BenBurch said:
What you do not expect to see is throughput rates dropping!
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Why not? The charts are not clearly explained, but if I were selling the same throughput to more customers, wouldn't that show an average drop on a per customer basis.

And the "right" number does matter. If we were talking about something other than Mbs, we'd accept a finite amount based on cost and the unit of sale would be set depending on customer need and demand. In other words, if I'm a "normal" user, what throughput would I want and what should I pay for it? If Comcast (or another provider) were flooding me with bandwidth beyond whatever the magic point is, they are foolish to do so.
 
Verizon, AT&T and Comcast all have bundle deals that include TV services. I wonder if that has anything to do with their desire to restrict netflix bandwidth. Hmmm...
 
marplots said:
Why not? The charts are not clearly explained, but if I were selling the same throughput to more customers, wouldn't that show an average drop on a per customer basis.

And the "right" number does matter. If we were talking about something other than Mbs, we'd accept a finite amount based on cost and the unit of sale would be set depending on customer need and demand. In other words, if I'm a "normal" user, what throughput would I want and what should I pay for it? If Comcast (or another provider) were flooding me with bandwidth beyond whatever the magic point is, they are foolish to do so.
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One needs somewhere between 1 and 2 Mbps for an HD quality video. This speed is usually much less than what an ISP customer pays for.
 
marplots said:
Why not? The charts are not clearly explained, but if I were selling the same throughput to more customers, wouldn't that show an average drop on a per customer basis.

And the "right" number does matter. If we were talking about something other than Mbs, we'd accept a finite amount based on cost and the unit of sale would be set depending on customer need and demand. In other words, if I'm a "normal" user, what throughput would I want and what should I pay for it? If Comcast (or another provider) were flooding me with bandwidth beyond whatever the magic point is, they are foolish to do so.
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The downward trend in bandwidth means they are providing an increasingly poorer service to their consumers, who are already over paying for what they're being promised.

And it's not a matter that the users are to blame, the cable companies can increase bandwidth but they just don't want to; but when faced with actual competition...
 
marplots said:
Why not? The charts are not clearly explained, but if I were selling the same throughput to more customers, wouldn't that show an average drop on a per customer basis.
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Yes, I'm not sure what the charts are showing, either. Is it one person's connection? Or is it the average of all customers' connections on the entire footprint?

The latter could also be explained through expansion of footprint. The more remote areas will have two factors: they will be lit up later, and they will have slower speeds because of longer loops.



marplots said:
And the "right" number does matter. If we were talking about something other than Mbs, we'd accept a finite amount based on cost and the unit of sale would be set depending on customer need and demand. In other words, if I'm a "normal" user, what throughput would I want and what should I pay for it? If Comcast (or another provider) were flooding me with bandwidth beyond whatever the magic point is, they are foolish to do so.
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That's where I'm not sure what's being charted. The average speed across all the customers may be declining because of footprint expansion. It's still possible that people getting 1Mbps are only paying for 1Mbps, so it may not be displaying a decline in value for the customers.
 
Newtons Bit said:
One needs somewhere between 1 and 2 Mbps for an HD quality video. This speed is usually much less than what an ISP customer pays for.
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I see. If between one and two is going to be the yardstick, the charts show that being provided. I do not know what these people are paying for though.

It would be interesting to know if the charts include downtime in the averages, since post-nasty-winter-storm, I may have a day or two of zero to average in.
 
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marplots said:
I see. If between one and two is going to be the yardstick, the charts show that being provided. I do not know what these people are paying for though.

It would be interesting to know if the charts include downtime in the averages, since, post-nasty-winter-storm, I may have a day or two of zero to average in.
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http://www.techspot.com/news/52338-...the-us-up-28-south-korea-still-far-ahead.html

As of a year ago, the average connection was 7.4 Mbps. So if they are getting around three, they are being ripped off.
 
marplots said:
I see. If between one and two is going to be the yardstick, the charts show that being provided. I do not know what these people are paying for though.
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I think that's what the poster assumed was being shown: that customers paying $x/mo were seeing declining speeds, which means a progressively worse value proposition.

The problem is that I think it's clear the ISPs have been adding new customers through expansion of their service areas. They would start with the low hanging fruit: dense populations in connected cities. Cheap and fast.

Over time, the profits from those markets subsidize builds to progressively more remote areas, which will have lower speeds simply because of architecture. So the average speed for the customer base is dropping even though no customer's speed is actually changing.

Certainly here in Canada, the trend is toward incrementally faster speeds in a particular location (eg: my neighbourhood was upgraded to 25Mbps/5Mbps), but the mean average speed spread across all customers is not increasing, as we build out to, say, mining towns, indian reservations, islands, logging camps, vacation cottages...
 
BenBurch said:
http://www.techspot.com/news/52338-...the-us-up-28-south-korea-still-far-ahead.html

As of a year ago, the average connection was 7.4 Mbps. So if they are getting around three, they are being ripped off.
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Wouldn't that depend on how much they are using? And the numbers linked to by elbe above are much different than shown in those charts.

However, I see your point. For some uses, such as streaming a movie or loading pages for viewing (like this forum), a lower ceiling is fine. But, when downloading something substantial, speed must max out and the ceiling will be hit no matter how fast your connection is. In other words, a connection that is ten times faster downloads faster, but still isn't instantaneous.

For most applications, so long as the connection is faster than I can process the information, I can detect no difference between one and ten Mbs - the experience is identical.
 
elbe said:
The downward trend in bandwidth means they are providing an increasingly poorer service to their consumers, who are already over paying for what they're being promised.

And it's not a matter that the users are to blame, the cable companies can increase bandwidth but they just don't want to; but when faced with actual competition...
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Increasing bandwidth does increase their costs. Whenever they respond to a competitive environment by increasing the value proposition, value will have to be withdrawn from regions with less competition (eg: delaying speed upgrades or introducing caps). "all things being equal"

In the long run, I think we can understand that there will be a trend toward faster speeds as consumer needs and technology change, and as the previous generation's capital expenditure is paid off over its amortization (usually a few years).


What I'd like to point out, though, is that this has nothing to do with the topic of net neutrality.
 
marplots said:
Wouldn't that depend on how much they are using? And the numbers linked to by elbe above are much different than shown in those charts.

However, I see your point. For some uses, such as streaming a movie or loading pages for viewing (like this forum), a lower ceiling is fine. But, when downloading something substantial, speed must max out and the ceiling will be hit no matter how fast your connection is. In other words, a connection that is ten times faster downloads faster, but still isn't instantaneous.

For most applications, so long as the connection is faster than I can process the information, I can detect no difference between one and ten Mbs - the experience is identical.
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The web is becoming more and more high quality content rich and will place more and more demands on consumer bandwidth. Video stream through netflix, youtube, etc., downloading and installing games on the pc and consoles, various games that require very low latency to play online. These are just a part of what the internet has become and the ISPs need to keep up with the pace.
 
elbe said:
The web is becoming more and more high quality content rich and will place more and more demands on consumer bandwidth. Video stream through netflix, youtube, etc., downloading and installing games on the pc and consoles, various games that require very low latency to play online. These are just a part of what the internet has become and the ISPs need to keep up with the pace.
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In particular, video content. 1-2Mbps is not 1080p streaming, much less 4K, and many households have simultaneous viewers. You'd need to multiply the necessary throughput by the number of streams.

For a family of 4, there could be 2-3 simultaneous streams for hours every evening. 6Mbps sounds like a bare minimum.
 
BTW, my ISP, Wide Open West, not only sells me 30/5 Mbps but they have zero problem with my using 100% of it and I often do. Reloading servers, running online backup, etc, etc. But that is a different issue from neutrality.

The question is whether they can look at a popular destination and decide to collect extortion in return for not ruining the business of that destination.

What we need and must have are ISPs who are Common Carriers, and who must treat all traffic the same even if it means they have to make good on the bandwidth they promised people.
 
A cable TV company is allowed to not carry a TV station if it does not want to. Why should an ISP be forced to carry a particular web site?

It is all about limited bandwith and traffic. "Net neutrality" is a nice sounding name to make you appear to be a jerk for being against something so cool. And yet it is akin to making contractors build a four lane highway to every business in America, from Disneyland to your Aunt Mabel's doublewide trailer where she runs a home jewelry making business.

Resources are limited, and your Aunt Mabel does not deserve a four lane highway up to her house, nor do her online clients need to have the same bandwidth access as Netflix.
 
The government has created geographical fiefdoms. Monopolistic enterprises in the areas of cable TV, internet service, and medical insurance. How's that been working about for you? Feeling a little trapped when shopping for one or the other?

Yeah...

If you had access to more than one ISP, then you would have competition for your business. An ISP that decided to block Netflix, or ran rates too high, would quickly lose business to their competition.

You know. Like cell phone carriers. Did Verizon piss you off? You can move to AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Cricket, or TracFone!

Don't like your GEICO auto insurance? There is a whole universe of competition where you can go.

Don't ask for MORE government intervention in the marketplace, for crying out loud. Keep them OUT!
 
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Nifty, then the cable companies can give me back the tax dollars they are using on their infrastructure and can give up their de facto monopolies.
 
G6000 said:
Don't ask for MORE government intervention in the marketplace, for crying out loud. Keep them OUT!
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You do understand that in most industries, the government looks to prevent monopolies, right?

That, at the time, cable required a lot of infrastructure and expense to set up.

I think we're at a point where it is time to see broadband service as a public utility.
 
Newtons Bit said:
Verizon, AT&T and Comcast all have bundle deals that include TV services. I wonder if that has anything to do with their desire to restrict netflix bandwidth. Hmmm...
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So does Cablevision but they aren't following the trend (That is another example of how horrible Comcast is. they make Cablevision seem like the good guys).

What you really should notice is that Verizon and Comcast are also content providers, not just the pipelines for access. Verizon owns RedBox and Comcast has several online services in direct competition with companies like Netflix. I don't know about AT&T, but I'm willing to bet they are in the same boat.
 
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