Net Neut: Verizon flips the bird to FCC on peering deal crackdown Verizon reckons the FCC's net neutrality proposals can not lawfully stop ISPs charging websites big bucks to increase streaming speeds to subscribers. In a letter to FCC secretary Marlene Dortch, the US telecoms giant said the FCC's Open Internet policies must not regulate peering agreements – because doing so would ruin the …
And this is why we need Title II.
No it's not a great or even close, but these statements clearly show that Verizon has the itch to jack prices up, up and up. Apparently, without Title II, some of us will be paying $100+ a month for 30mbit connections. Or who knows, maybe there won't be a 30mbit connection for $100, but a 50mbit connection for $150...you just don't know.
Title II: At least you already know what you don't like about it.
@Charles 9, I suspect that is the real crux of the issue. Those in the land of the slaves, - they are certainly not free to chose their ISP, are really just slaves to their junk ISP, such as Verizon with their 'we know we are rubbish but take it or leave it' attitude.
Are they the same shower who try to shut down any and all municipality initiated competition?
It often appears that ISP has segued from Service Provider to Service Preventer in many locations.
What if ISPs responded to a Title II declaration by raising prices across the board and blame it on increased administrative costs?
What makes you think they won't raise their prices regardless? The price I pay for my cable modem connection has more than doubled in the last 10 years (~$20/mo -> ~$45) but the bandwidth I get only went up by ~60% (15Mbps -> 24Mbps.)
Oh they are surely going to raise the prices, that's just what comes with their greedy nature. However, at least one way you have some questions answered on the table, while the other the possibilities are limitless. If you think that in those limitless possibilities that reduced price and better service is one of the possibilities, well I think none of us believe that.
I just ask myself 2 questions, would Verizon be making such a fuss if they didn't stand to loose jacking up the prices on customers to increase profit margins? Or, would they be making such a fuss if they just wanted to keep the same profit margin with the same old shitty speeds?
Put it under Title II to boot and let them work it out in frustration. You have to put a leash on the beast at some point, but that doesn't mean you can't change the leash later on. The entire time I've been reading about the Title II dispute, everyone seems to be under the assumption that if it goes under Title II then it has to stay under Title II _FOREVER_, this is simply wrong.
Content providers are asking for a free ride, as Verizon points out in their letter in the footnotes on p.7/8
"Netflix Comments, at 17 (proposing that ISPs be required to offer no-fee interconnection"
And Level 3 asking for free peering as well. ISPs, in the spirit of Net Neutrality may want to aks their friendly L3 rep for free peering. The problem is still the very asymmetric costs, ie it costs the ISP a lot more to deliver those bits to their customers than it would cost L3 or Netflix to string a cable across a datacentre. Much of the argument is about large content providers like Netflix passing their delivery costs onto the ISPs, who would then have no choice but to pass costs on to their subscribers.
"Much of the argument is about large content providers like Netflix passing their delivery costs onto the ISPs, who would then have no choice but to pass costs on to their subscribers."
Which then puts the ISPs between Scylla and Charybdis because customers are already complaining and defecting from rate-hiking ISPs. What happens when the break-even price is still too high for customers to accept?
"...it costs the ISP a lot more to deliver those bits to their customers than it would cost L3 or Netflix to string a cable across a datacentre."
Um, why would Netflix agree to ongoing, recurring payments for a peering agreement when they could have simply have incurred a one-time cost by adding some hardware on their side? I believe it is because the missing resources were not on Netflix's side of the connection.
"Much of the argument is about large content providers like Netflix passing their delivery costs onto the ISPs, who would then have no choice but to pass costs on to their subscribers."
And again, um, isn't that how the Internet works? Users pay for a connection, then go out to external sites and exchange packets. Yes, when the packets consist of a video stream from Netflix the arrangement is pretty one-sided, but then this is >>EXACTLY<< what ISP's expect. My connection is rated for 50 Mb downstream, but only 5Mb up...
Why does a packet from Netflix "cost more" to deliver to me than a packet due to downloading an ISO image from Debian?
"Um, why would Netflix agree to ongoing, recurring payments for a peering agreement when they could have simply have incurred a one-time cost by adding some hardware on their side? I believe it is because the missing resources were not on Netflix's side of the connection."
It's traditionally the way the Internet has worked, for better or worse. Peering was between "peers", ie other ISPs with some expectation of mutual benefit and equality. Naturally this begat peering wars, Tier-1 bragging and the Net Neutrality debate. If you're not a peer, you pay something towards the cost of delivering your bits. Netflix doesn't want to pay if it can help it because obviously that becomes an operating cost that eats into it's margins and profits. Situation gets a bit more complex when ISPs like Level 3 and Cogent are involved. But basically it's an issue with the way the money flows, and pretty much a plain cost to your ISP.
User > Netflix
Netflix -> Cogent/L3 <-ISP <-User
So double dipping is really from Netflix's transit providers, as unless the agree to free peering with the ISPs connected to them, the ISPs would also have to buy more transit from Cogent/L3.
"And again, um, isn't that how the Internet works? Users pay for a connection, then go out to external sites and exchange packets. Yes, when the packets consist of a video stream from Netflix the arrangement is pretty one-sided, but then this is >>EXACTLY<< what ISP's expect. My connection is rated for 50 Mb downstream, but only 5Mb up..."
Yes, to an extent. Unless you're a business user or running servers at home, usage patterns have pretty much always been asymmetric since the good'ol days of 1200/75 modems. Difference is the amount of traffic generated by traditional usage, ie email, web, VoIP, gaming and streaming large amounts of HD video content to millions of users. That's not something the Internet was ever really designed to do and just highlighted settlement problems. Which isn't something new and the voice world solved it over 100yrs ago. If originating/terminating traffic balances, costs net out, otherwise one side pays the other to reflect the costs of delivering the other parties traffic.
"Why does a packet from Netflix "cost more" to deliver to me than a packet due to downloading an ISO image from Debian?"
Assuming you're downloading from the same place, it wouldn't. Difference is you're probably not downloading those images every night. Just like I'm not downloading 11GB from Steam every day. Plus if there's congestion, your download can be slowed down and it'll just take a little while longer to complete. If it's video, the ISP probably has no control over the session and if there's congestion, playback stops and user blames their ISP. Or Netflix blames your ISP. Or your ISP blames their transit provider for not increasing capacity. Widespread video streaming massively increases capacity needed during peak busy hours, and if content providers won't contribute towards those costs, the only option is again to charge the user.
since I don't like paying for nothing (what? that cable sticking out the wall and nothing on the line until the other side paid also for my access) I just resigned to getting the bottom tier service. Yep, it's slow as hell but fu verizon/comcast/... You'll only get paid once, and the least necessary amount (though still overpaying, in this "free market paradise").
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