Posted on 12/01/2010 8:57:47 AM PST by tricksy
Network neutrality is a simple concept: ISPs shouldn't play favorites with the content that goes over their parts of the Internet. It's a concept that harks back to the Commercial Internet Exchange (CIX) in 1991 when the first Internet carries agreed to share connections equally with each other. Although CIX is now largely forgotten, it's what started the Internet on its way from a backwater for researchers and schools to the omnipresent network in which we live, work, and play today.
Now, Comcast, appears to be the first major ISP to break that old CIX rule of network neutrality. Level 3 Communications, one of Netflix's content delivery network (CDN) partners has accused Comcast of charging Level 3 extra fees for carrying Netflix's movies.
Thomas Stortz, Chief Legal Officer of Level 3, wrote that out of the blue "On November 19, 2010, Comcast informed Level 3 that, for the first time, it will demand a recurring fee from Level 3 to transmit Internet online movies and other content to Comcast's customers who request such content. By taking this action, Comcast is effectively putting up a toll booth at the borders of its broadband Internet access network, enabling it to unilaterally decide how much to charge for content which competes with its own cable TV and Xfinity-delivered content...."
...Who is asking for all that Level 3/Netflix traffic? Comcast's own customers, of course. The last thing Comcast wants is to charge its customers more. But, if the company can force the expense on Level 3, and from them to Netflix, then Netflix will be the one in trouble with customers, not Comcast.
I call a foul on Comcast....
(Excerpt) Read more at zdnet.com ...
The other concept that comes into play is honest labeling. Comcast offers "internet access". If they arbitarily pick and choose which content providers can be accessed at the full speed their individual customers paid for -- or even which ones can be accessed at all -- they are not providing genuine internet access. It's no different, really, from a grocer selling something that purports to be a pound of beef but which actually weighs only thirteen ounces, or which contains thirteen ounces of beef and three ounces of vegetable filler, dead bugs, and sawdust.
Let me repeat: Hooray for making money! Fat slobs sit around watching mega feeds of video and it’s always GREAT to charge them whatever you can get away with, in just about any legit way you can get away with it, including charging the higher tariffs to the provider of the slop the fat slobs gorge themselves on.
The less fat slobs in a society the better. Unleash the FREE MARKET to take them out. Be they on welfare of any sort or even a pension. Cost them to friggin hell for all their chosen desires.
Is that somewhat more clear to you?
I think this explains it pretty well. The Local Franchise Authority (LFA) only regulates the cost of basic tier service. I thought they had the ability to regulate the cost of all services, as is the case for other utilities.
http://www.ehow.com/facts_5019585_regulates-cable-companies.html
Cable companies are often blamed for high rates and bad service. Is there any regulation on what the cable companies charge? The answer is yes, but it is limited. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has created regulating bodies at the local level called local franchise authorities (LFAs).
The LFA
1. The LFA is an agent under the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is the national agency that regulates communications companies such as telephone and cable companies.
LFA Oversight
2. An LFA can be any governmental organization authorized by the FCC. These can include cities, states, counties and other municipal authorities.
LFA Authority
3. An LFA has the authority to regulate what a cable company charges for local, educational or government stations. This is often referred to as “basic tier” coverage and often covers the lowest-cost package for cable providers.
The FCC
4. The FCC controls the regulations an LFA enforces. These regulations determine whether a cable provider’s rates for basic service are reasonable or rate increases are justified.
What Isn’t Regulated
5. Any cable services above basic service are not regulated. This includes premium channels, customer service, franchise fees and installation costs.
Read more: Who Regulates Cable Companies? | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/facts_5019585_regulates-cable-companies.html#ixzz16stPYp19
Actually I can read very well. I just think that you don’t have a good understanding of how modern broadband works.
You keep saying that you shouldn’t have to pay for other people’s broadband habits and that only lazy people need high broadband limits.
While I agree with you that you shouldn’t have to pay for other’s usage habits, and I’m not even going to touch your comment that only lazy people need high broadband limits, what you don’t understand is that YOU DON’T CURRENTLY PAY FOR THEM TO USE THAT BROADBAND!
Unless you’re on a CATV service which has not been upgraded, other people’s broadband habits don’t effect you at all. Especially if you’re on FIOS like you claimed.
Now, you’ve stated that you downgraded to a slower connection to better serve your needs for a lower price. That’s great, but here’s the big secret.
Nothing’s changed. Nothing at all. You still are operating on the same equipment, with the same speed capabilities, over the same lines. What’s even more important is the fact that the equipment you’re using (if you actually are on FIOS) is capable of some seriously amazing things but the price for that equipment doesn’t change from one speed to the next. The only thing that’s changed is someone put a limiter on your usage.
Now, knowing that all the office equipment is the same and all the material in the field is the same, and you have a dedicated fiber optic line to your house so you don’t have to share bandwidth, and the only difference is that you’re paying a lower price for less bandwidth, limited only by a computer program, what’s your gripe about high bandwidth users?
Seriously, in the early to mid 90’s I would be right there with you fuming about the bandwidth hogs, but not today. Times have changed.
That seems to be a pretty decent site to gather information. I’ll have to look a little closer, but I do know that a few States (not sure how many, but IIRC it was 4 or 5) had passed laws which allowed other utility providers to compete against the CATV providers, as long as the new providers were not CATV providers also.
This is how Verizon broke the LFA agreement stranglehold that was in place in one of the first Northern VA markets. (IIRC, it was either Ashburn or Arlington. I’m still a little hazy as to which was first.)
That happens at the broadband router level back at the office connecting to the backbone. Router rules are the real issue. I suspect that it wouldn't be unknown for providers to change the QOS rules for certain domains so that packets just happen to arrive out of sequence.
And yes, I have spent a bunch of time tracking stuff with wireshark.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that’s the case, but I’m not a software engineer so I wouldn’t know for certain. What I do know is that, physically and fiscally, there’s no difference between the equipment that is used to provide the bare-bones, “I’ll have a salad and water” internet service and the deluxe, all-you-can-eat buffet style that most mega-users prefer.
It may come back to that, but when it's been tried it wasn't successful in the market. People would rather pay a set fee for internet access and not have to watch the usage. It's purely a pricing choice, it could be changed anytime it works, and sells, better than the unlimited package.
Having done this in a non-legit way, they need to be slapped down. Let's see the pics of execs in orange jumpsuits, already....
Actually, what fat slobs do is spout off on subject about which they know nothing, while their betters (e.g. trained network engineers) futilely attempt to educate them.
No man born of women or otherwise removed from his mammy’s womb is MY better, and there is no field of human endeavor about which I am wholly shy to speak about.
What makes you think I have no network experience?
Are you hiding behind the old FIOS guy’s apron strings here? There’s a whole lot more to a network, loadings choke points than he has spoken of so far. I was working on network designs and systems — including fiber optic networks and computing hubs when he was learning fractions, perhaps. But all that doesn’t matter.
This is a simpler issue. Can a service provider acting as a common carrier charge shippers differential rates based on the weight of what is shipped. Old established law says sure! As do the golden cornucopia principles of Liberty and free markets.
Comcast wants to be paid twice for delivering one service. That is a scam.
That hasn't been my experience!
You want to regulate, you want more, not less, of a regulatory state.
I’m telling you the old established practices and law of common carriers. You ignored that. Myopia by choice is a form of stupidity by choice.
I agree with you. Let Comcast ream out Netflix and Netflix can in turn increase charges for its movie streamers. Leave me out of this. Don’t jack up my cable rates to pay for the dumbass streamers who make streaming a way of life. And with Netflix charging $8/month for unlimited streaming there will be millions of dumbass streamers.
Netflix Amazon and others use and abuse of the Comcast (and other ISPs) pipes has only just begun
Thanks for the moral support!
This is like forcing auto insurance companies to accept policies from new customers the day after the accident. Their pipes would be overrun by only people with costs. Hmmm ... maybe that’s too strained an analogy.
What Comcast is doing is simple and practical. Forcing the cost throttling, the shunting plumbing, where it should go — at the point where the septic tankers dump their loads into the city sewer system. Otherwise all the surrounding towns will take advantage of the big city sanitary sewer system and sewage treatment plant, paid for by the city residents. Charge a steep fee per truckload and force the slask (a Swedish word) schleppers to start treating their slask themselves, rather than forcing the cost on others.
That’s better analogy. The other one applies more to the perversion of health “insurance” called Obama-care. Another toxic monster of the regulatory state.
Nonsense. Comcast’s customers paid for a certain number of bits per second; Comcast is trying to weasel out of its end of the contract and trying to get paid twice for delivering once.
Fine by me. Let them stick it to Netflix. A totally different entity from Y O U that can choose to pass along the Comcast tax to its streamers or not. That is Netflix' call.
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