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A modest proposal on internet neutrality

Jonnyclueless said:
A company should have a right to do business the way it wants to be. As someone who has worked with ISPs it's usually 10% of the customer that use 90% of the resources and a company should have a right to take measures to prevent a minority from reducing the quality of service for the rest of the customers.
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How about an ISP CEO who is morally opposed to pornography ? Should he be able to block it from his users ?
 
WildCat said:
The problem is there is not unlimited space for such infrastructure, and it's not desirable to tear up streets and such every time a new competitor enters the market.

And nobody is telling the company how to run their business, if they are unhappy with a few customers using all the bandwidth then stop selling unlimited bandwidth plans. Don't cry that people are using the service they paid for.
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At this point, net neutrality would be telling companies how to run their business. It's not about overusage. It's about shaping usage.

Examples are that the ISP wants to build a plan that says VoIP, NetFlix, AppleTV, Hulu, Google Play &c would be data that triggers enhanced charges to either the end user or the supplier. eg: "Dear Google: we have blocked Google Play from John Smith IP 128.99.99.99 until you cover his data transfer charges. Signed ISP."

Telling ISPs they are forbidden to do this type of discretionary pricing is the thrust of Net Neutrality, and it is absolutely legislating a reduction of their business options.



WildCat said:
The other issue is vertically integrated companies, such as when you have the ISP also operating web sites. They then have an interest in throttling competitor sites.
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Forget throttling. I'm thinking about 'tapping into' everybody's revenue streams. For example, the ISP could request a $1 commission on Amazon.com orders as compensation for carrying their traffic. 25c per iTunes purchase.
 
BenBurch said:
Consumers, where they have a choice of a neutral ISP and one that is going to play games with their traffic will probably choose the neutral company, and this will force even those companies now committed to providing an un-equal access service to change and provide a neutral service in addition or instead.

What do you think?
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I think some people will take it into consideration, but the main problems are that monopolies and duopolies are too abundant. Since net neutrality would impact revenues, I think most ISPs would deploy some sort of price discrimination. The customer would probably be faced with no local provider that was not shaping traffic anyways.

Because of the huge opportunity to monetize traffic shaping, an ISP that did not conduct this behavior would be a higher-priced boutique offering at best. The potential is so huge that I would expect pricing differences to be an order of magnitude. eg: Free/mo+usage for the shaped traffic, or $100/mo for the net neutral provider.
 
OnlyTellsTruths said:
They would more likely be asking John Smith for that money than Google.
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If I had to put my nickel down, I'd say the most attractive model for ISPs is to bill both.

The briefs that have been submitted in Canada and the US regarding this topic are not just coming from consumer groups. Businesses like NetFlix consider both pricing models viable.

I'll explain why billing the supplier is probably more attractive to the ISP: the consumer will absorb the charge on the webservice's bill (higher product pricing) and complaints will be directed to the webservice instead of to the ISP.


Carriers are very used to this problem.

Here's a counter-example to illustrate the consumer tendency... let's say you are using your cellphone to participate in an SMS contest that costs $50 per vote. Customer bought a product from Fox Television. But because the charge is on the phonebill, customers complain to the phone company.

So, the ISPs are much more tempted to pass cost onto the webservice business, as the consumer will be paying via another brand's increased prices.

Net Neutrality is not about volume of usage. It's about differentially monetizing certain types of traffic.
 
BenBurch said:
OK, so the courts say the FCC cannot demand that ISPs remain neutral with respect to classes of traffic, opening the door to things like Verizon cable keeping you from even finding WOW cable's web site.
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That's not what the court did, it told the FCC it did it the wrong way.

Of course, comcrap lept on the opportunity instantly, we already see youtube being throttled here.
 
Newtons Bit said:
Remove local ordinances that give phone or cable utility companies right to easements unless they provide a neutral service. If they don't want to give us freedom to use the service over the entire internet then I see no reason to give them any safeguards in placing a cable under my backyard.
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AFAIK (I'm in Canada, so my knowledge of US regulation is 2nd hand) this is not necessary.

My understanding is that the local monopoly on network ownership is not a network monopoly on service provision. The concept is that an ILEC (RBOCs in the US) has no right of refusal for wholesaling of the last mile. Not sure about US cable.

What this means is that if Bell is running copper pairs to the community, and an ISP wants to move in and sell voice or ADSL on those pairs, Bell is obliged by law to resell the access at a tariffed rate. (Here in Canada, it's about $10/mo in bulk for a copper pair) They would have access to the CO to install their ADSL ports and clip them to the leased loop.

Generally, a lack of competition just means a lack of interest in other ISPs to move into the territory. Usually not enough subscribers to have profitable competitive pricing and service levels. As communities get larger, competition is more interested.

It's important to recognize that when a municipality is negotiating an easement monopoly, the exchange is that the utility is obligated to provide service even where they will lose money. Relieving the monopoly probably means the utility will connect only where they think it's profitable.

So the regulator's solution was to give the utility a network monopoly in exchange for full community coverage, but also give new businesses essentially unlimited access to that network through a wholesaler/reseller relationship.
 
blutoski said:
At this point, net neutrality would be telling companies how to run their business. It's not about overusage. It's about shaping usage.

Examples are that the ISP wants to build a plan that says VoIP, NetFlix, AppleTV, Hulu, Google Play &c would be data that triggers enhanced charges to either the end user or the supplier. eg: "Dear Google: we have blocked Google Play from John Smith IP 128.99.99.99 until you cover his data transfer charges. Signed ISP."

Telling ISPs they are forbidden to do this type of discretionary pricing is the thrust of Net Neutrality, and it is absolutely legislating a reduction of their business options.

Forget throttling. I'm thinking about 'tapping into' everybody's revenue streams. For example, the ISP could request a $1 commission on Amazon.com orders as compensation for carrying their traffic. 25c per iTunes purchase.
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That's a great idea. Make cable companies more like the Port of Long Beach.
 
Well, if I weren't already using a VPN service, this would convince me to do it.
 
they can try, but I can raise bloody hell since I actually use it for my job. And my employer is a heavy weight in this area (one of our execs is married to a congressperson). If my ISP tries to throttle VPN connections, thereby screwing with some important people's dollars, that de facto monopoly may be in jeopardy.
 
I wonder if Netflix had to sign a crappy long term deal with Comcast with great teaser rates for the first six months and undisclosed higher rates thereafter and a hefty early termination fee.
 
Why we care:

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Alferd_Packer said:
I wonder if Netflix had to sign a crappy long term deal with Comcast with great teaser rates for the first six months and undisclosed higher rates thereafter and a hefty early termination fee.
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They probably didn't sign any deal at all, which is why Comcast is looking to free itself of net neutrality rules.

In their perspective, Netflix is not paying anything for the traffic that is allegedly so vital to their business model. If they can bill Comcast for traffic, that would be quite appealing.

And the way the market works, the rate for local users could drop while the speed increases, because additional revenue is coming from Netflix customers.
 
BenBurch said:
What you do not expect to see is throughput rates dropping!
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It would be nice to be able to contrast it with monthly prices over the same period, but I don't know how difficult that information would be to collect. I would predict the prices would either be stable or slightly increasing.
 
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