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What, you don't think MS and Google don't have teams of lobbyists working for them?

It sounds more to me that the 'two-tier' system is nothing more than traffic flow control, which routers all across the internet are doing anyway.

AFAIK the plan is to create a high-speed lane for higher-priority traffic, or add priority to sites which can afford the charges.

This isn't a bad idea, really, it would create funds and incentive for ISPs to expand their performance capabilities, but then the question remains as to the remaining performance in regards to non-preferred sites.

If too many people jump on the expressway, they may decide to widen the expressway at the expense of the frontage road, causing backups on the frontage road, which will be most sites.

Would be good for YouTube, Google, Yahoo, and corporate news sites, bad for community projects or non-profit orgs, or just the normal individual's web-site, which could become virtually inaccessible as browser timeouts begin to be eclipsed by network delays.

What we really need is ISP-caching, with cache updates occurring at a given interval for basic 'added priority' content, and on-modification through notification for 'high-priority' content. ISPs could sell their storage capabilities and deliver specific content faster ( such as YouTube's top 100 videos or so ).

Oh well, I'm split on it.

--The loon

Ted Stevens is the co-chair and current ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. The committee is responsible for all communications-related legislation that goes through the senate. Stevens apparently has near-zero knowledge of how networks function. And he's in charge.


Here's another gem from him, in which he refers to an email (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Stevens):

"an Internet [sic] was sent by my staff..."

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer, right?

This is crap. The Washington Post recently had an article stating Japan is almost totally wired with 100 meg fiber to the home. They can do it without a two tier structure why can't we?

This is crap. The Washington Post recently had an article stating Japan is almost totally wired with 100 meg fiber to the home. They can do it without a two tier structure why can't we?

That's exactly why the US and other countries doing such a thing will get left behind.

Well, I would take this 100 meg fiber claim with a grain of salt. It may be 100meg on their own network, but I doubt that the ISP itself will have such highspeed connections for everyone. It would make P2P stuff fast on their own network though.

This is crap. The Washington Post recently had an article stating Japan is almost totally wired with 100 meg fiber to the home. They can do it without a two tier structure why can't we?

Because the US is a completely different country and society than Japan or European countries.

Take a look at the whole GSM thing. You Americans invented the cell phone thing, but it took you years and years longer to properly implement it - 3rd world countries were already using full-coverage cellular networks, and you guys were still trying to figure out how to best divide/sell the frequencies.

On top of that, the US is an immense country. For us Dutch, implementing a nation-wide super-fast internet would be relatively easy compared to doing the same in the US.

And I'm not even mentioning the fact that the US governmental structure is quite odd - Washington's say in things is fairly limited compared to The Hague's say over here.

Take a look at the whole GSM thing. You Americans invented the cell phone thing, but it took you years and years longer to properly implement it - 3rd world countries were already using full-coverage cellular networks, and you guys were still trying to figure out how to best divide/sell the frequencies.

It is easier to implement something from scratch than it is to upgrading a creaky old aging infrastructure. It is also much less expensive.

Just because we invented it doesn't mean we did a good job implementing it. Now that our infrastructure is starting to show its age and the big telcoms aren't doing so well, they don't want to upgrade.

You are right.

Let's not forget the fact they our big businesses want to squeeze every last dime from their investments/customers/employees. The aging equipment and technology is allowed to be used because they don't want to dig into the CEO's and staff memebers huge bonuses and paychecks. American business want the highest possible profit. I understand their greedy little point, but I don't agree with it.

Besides, the internet isn't made for the wealthy. It is for all. And this will really only hurt American businesses.

Although it seems most ISPs are going to continue to play on the "fair and level," both because it's simpler and it's what people expect, I'm afraid a few corrupt ISPs (AOL, Verizon, &c) will take the failure of net neutrality to pass to encourage people to pay them to grant their sites priority.

The one impact I'm most worried about is our politics. Elections are coming up, and e-mail and electronic word-of-mouth is vital for any candidate nowadays. Imagine an election year where the GOP manages to spend enough money to lock Democrat sites down to a dismal minimum (on the bribable networks, anyways). Not to mention what fundie/extremist organizations will do to everyone else...

(can't resist)

That's a design feature, not a bug.

Considering how the Republicans have had trouble raising money lately (none of the candidates is doing particularly well, esp. in comparison to certain Democrats), I'd say the worry should go the other way 'round.

And I'm not even mentioning the fact that the US governmental structure is quite odd - Washington's say in things is fairly limited compared to The Hague's say over here.

I'm pleased that it appears that way, because that's the way it should be. Ours is supposed to be a limited government, where the citizens--and hence the businesses which citizens run--maintain some autonomy.

Edited 2007-09-07 17:30

It may appear that way from the outside, but from the inside looking out, it doesn't look that way to me.

The general populace have NO say in what happens. Our little "Democracy" experiment has been hijacked by political special interest groups with boku $. These take the form of political parties, corporations, and "grass roots" organizations that are anything but "grass roots".

Your vote doesn't really count, and now it's easier than ever to buy a stuffed ballot box.

So sure, we, the people are supposed to be running the country, but when was the last time no-name-joe decided to run for office and didn't have to bend over for some 'funding' or fabricate a 'platform' of non-issues that cannot be legislated (thank god the courts still work to some extent) to distract people from the real, actual things that effect their lives?

Food for thought. Might as well give up. Greed has won.

And yet you don't have it, neither do we belgians. We're falling behind, after the industrial revolution Belgium had the densest railsystem after the UK and we reaped the benefits for the entire industrial age. Now we're behind because we've privatized the communications infrastructure and there's no immediate profit in investing in better connections.

People need to wake up and vote out the luddites (or the just plain ignorant) and improve the infrastructure. History shows why.

Look at the size of Japan, though.

Considering the size of the U.S. we have a pretty sweet internet back-bone. In fact most of our internet back-bone is on optic cable, with speeds exceeding that of Japan's hopes for the future.

Problem is that smaller ISPs cannot afford optical connections, and opt for less expensive solutions, and larger ISPs often 'cannot afford' to run optical to all of their sub-stations or local hubs.

I live well outside of any large town, in Texas, and fiber optics have been laid to most subdivisions in the area, with each group of subdivisions having their own private subnet / local hub.

This is a technical requirement which causes good decentralization, good performance, and excellent capability. The true bottleneck then lies in the equipment utilized to power the network, and the standards applied to that equipment. Quality of Service features on most routers could be easily switched on to provide point-of-demand priority adjustment, merely by flipping a single option on the most popular networing equipment used to power the internet ( mostly Cisco, IIRC ).

--The loon

Because the entire population of Japan is smaller than the population of New York City. Not to mention that the U.S. on a whole is a -little- bit bigger than Japan, with it's people a -little- more spread out (insert japanese capsule hotel joke here).

Because the entire population of Japan is smaller than the population of New York City.

New York City has 8.1 million inhabitants. Japan has 127.5 million inhabitants.

*smacks head*

The problem is ISPs have had their heads shoved in the ground and apparently haven't been paying the slightest bit of attention to what's going on.

Let's be realistic, we have paid and we are paying. And the ISPs are failing to provide the service we paid for. They have squandered their money and refuse to upgrade/extend their infrastructure.

If you pay for a service and an ISP can't live up to the terms of that service, it is up to the ISP, not you to fix whatever is wrong.

And the ISPs are failing to provide the service we paid for. They have squandered their money and refuse to upgrade/extend their infrastructure.

I don't know where you live, but Verizon has been tearing up the streets and yards here in Maryland for over a year laying "the last mile" of "fiber to the house". And a while before them, Comcast upgraded all their distribution infrastructure to fiber.

I'm not totally sure what the network neutrality buzzphrase means, but one thing is sure--the ISPs are very active in trying to bring us better service.

Verizon has been upgrading their network, but SBC... excuse me, AT&T hasn't. At least some place that isn't one of the top five metroplexes. Cox is ok, but sweet jesus they rape customers when it comes to the final bill.

Net Neutrality means that all bits will be treated the same regardless of where they originated. ISP won't get to extort money from content providers, websites, VoIP, P2P apps, etc., to make sure their bits are delivered.

Example, bits from google won't be penalized from being from google, and Vonage won't have their bits relegated to the bit bucket so Verizon or AT&T can push their telephone service.

Non-neutrality has it's upside, but it does have potential for abuse.

Net Neutrality means that all bits will be treated the same ...

That sounds very good at first, but that fact that the government is the enforcer, "looking out for the little guy" (so to speak) makes me nervous. When government power grows, it's the little guy that invariably gets hurt.

The only aspect of this that gives me reason to believe that "net neutrality" might be a good and necessary thing is the fact that the ISPs are still quasi-monopolies. I have three choices for broadband, but some people have only one. If everyone had three choices there would be absolutely no need for government fiddling with the free market.

Maybe it's needed as part of the normal limits on monopoly power, but it just sounds so much like propaganda that I'm leery.

Now, the internet is changing and things like P2P and video are causing the average user to become less bursty.

You pay an ISP for an estimated average bandwith. Now if that bandwith is decreased due to too many subscribers than that ISP has the obligation to invest in faster equipment.

A lot of subscribers have a monthly data rate beside a capped transmission rate. Also not uncommon is a fair use policy.

Why should one have to suffer because your freaky neighbour on the wire likes to stream mp3 to half the net population?

go to another amusement park or call them and tell them why you're not going anymore. That's how capitalism works.

That's the problem. Capitalism doesn't work, for many reasons. It has "crashed" more than once too.

Of course, because Amusement Parks spring out of the blue every day, given the wide availability of cheap land everywhere.

And of course, capitalism works so well and companies are so nice that they would never think of bribing the local politicians so that they are the only game in town and no other company obtains a license to build an "amusement park".

Capitalism works some of the time under a healthy amount of regulation. There is this uneducated myth that the US is a bastion of unfettered capitalism, when the exact opposite is the truth.

Want to see unfettered capitalism and the invisible hand of the market? Look at the post-soviet economies that lacked any meaningful forms of regulation and engaged in a wild-west of unregulated unfettered capitalism. Result: corruption was rampant, the collapse of companies occurred daily and a general distrust of the market.

Capitalism in regulated markets such as those provided by most social democracies works far better than the naive capitalism that most people have in mind when they utter the word.

I am not ascribing to you, specifically, this type of thinking as, for all I know, you may be well aware of some of the points I have raised. Generally speaking, though, there is a tendency to overstate the generosity of the market and to understate the role of the state in making markets work.

Does Six Flags do this in the US? I've been to several amusement parks here & I've never once seen anything like this.

Universal Orlando does this. It's preposterous.

Essentially, for a fee (like $20!) they let you "cut" in line.

"Does Six Flags do this in the US? I've been to several amusement parks here & I've never once seen anything like this."

Yes they do. At least at Magic Mountain in California.

By the way, this capitalistic bastardism that you speak of is why America's economy has always kicked the world's collective ass. Current 'weakness' is a matter of 2nd/3rd order derivatives - it's still the biggest economic force in the world.

Not that I'm against Net Neutrality - ISPs made a long-term bet on internet use and the market shifted against them. When investment banks lose money on stocks, do they ask the companies whose value went down to pay them back the difference? No - they stand by their bet. That's the problem with what the ISPs are doing - they've got the economics ass-backward. If they charged customers per the KB, then their revenue would scale with usage, but then the whole system would get more complex (does anyone you know use a pay-as-you-go phone plan?) as well as make it harder for them to retain customers in a competitive market. Because of this, they (effectively) want to have uploaders pay for their bandwith twice, which is like stockholders demanding that a company pay them a dollar (per stock held) for every dollar the stock drops.

Please don't misunderstand - capitalism rocks, it's just that the ISPs are sore losers.

Now, for the other side of the argument.

Ever used a turnpike? Paid a toll? To use a road? A highway? A superhighway? An information superhighway?

You go faster.

Why do you pay to use it?

It's worth it. To you.

Why do they build turnpikes? Tollbooths? ... Information superhighways?

It's worth it. To them.

It's a great idea, and it's the basis of the 'anti-net-neutrality' argument. But.

We already have it.

By the way, this capitalistic bastardism that you speak of is why America's economy has always kicked the world's collective ass. ...

Shame it's such a failure, in comparison to other countries, when it comes down to basics like quality of life.

Lack of competition? In my area I can get HSI from AT&T, Comcast, or Sprint (wireless). That's relitively competitive? No? I think what is keeping ISPs from upgrading their networks is lack of revenue?

Here is the big secret... Profit margins on HSI are not that great. The reason infrastructure does not get upgraded is because there is no return on investment. The basic tenant of every company is to make money (period). Sorry, that is a fact for every company no matter where you are in the world.

And by the way competition usually lowers profit margins so you point is counter-intuitive.

Competition can lower profit margins but real competition will give you better rates and/or service. Who says that a company with high margins has to has to use it in the customer's best interest?

Yes, it sounds like you have some good competition in your area. Not everyone has that luxury, however. Pseudo-competition (or none at all) lets rates grow and service stagnate.

Over here, it's Verizon DSL @ 768k (fairly slow) for $30/month or Comcast @ 6-8 Mbps (fairly speedy by US standards) for $50/month. Comcast offers 12-24 Mbps options, but you pay even more. And the rate hikes...sheesh. I swear, every time I see/hear a Comcast ad (which is every 30 seconds in this area), my rate goes up by $2/month.

Verizon fiber @ 50 Mbps is a very limited option right now for this area, but hopefully the coverage grows fast. It would be nice if Comcast had some serious competition here.

Others have no choice at all. Thanks, de-regulatory legislation! I'm sure they won't screw up net-neutrality too.

Edited 2007-09-07 15:49

There was never any regulation that forced a cable or phone company to provide HSI. What deregulation do you mean?

The funny thing is that "Net Neutrality" would be a new regulation. When was the last time government intervention helped the telecom situation in the US?

I think LobalSurgery is refering to this:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070815-east-coast-verizon-wa...

http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/csgen.html

From the link:

In adopting the 1992 Cable Act, Congress stated that it wanted to...ensure cable operators do not have undue market power, and to ensure consumer interests are protected in the receipt of cable service. The Commission has adopted regulations to implement these goals.

However, in 1996:

In adopting the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress noted that it wanted to provide a pro-competitive, de-regulatory national policy framework designed to accelerate rapidly private sector deployment of advanced telecommunications and information technologies and services to all Americans by opening all telecommunications markets to competition. The Commission has adopted regulations to implement the requirements of the 1996 Act and the intent of Congress.

After de-regulation, competition still existed, but in many areas it was only for a short time, just until one provider could swallow all the rest.

When was the last time government intervention helped the telecom situation in the US?

The breakup of AT&T. Until then, my father tells me, you could only get two phones in the United States, and one of them (the "Princess" model) you got by paying more. AT&T wouldn't let residential customers hook anything else to their network.

I knew someone whose husband worked in AT&T's development department back then. She said AT&T's engineers hated management. They developed lots of nice things, and management was constantly refusing to implement them. Cost vs. anticipated benefit.

It isn't about profit margins, it is about what the company can sell you without having to upgrade their infrastructure at all. Why spend all that money upgrading their infrastructure when they can use their existing equipment and tell their customers a line that most invariably buy and pocket the money.

Back in the dialup days most people (myself included) were doing everything they could to increase their download speeds. At that time I was on Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) and their official stance on any support call concerning Internet access was "if you can get a voice call then your line works". I had a discussion with a senior engineer at the ISP I was using at that time and he said if Bell Atlantic spent $16 million on a new switch, many of the problems people faced with poor access would go away. Well that didn't happen. My other option was ISDN, at $130.00 a month also from Bell Atlantic/Verizon.

The example you provide is the exception to the rule, in many areas (especially rural) you have no choice at all. So the company providing the service can do whatever they want and you just have to suck it up. They don't upgrade simply because they feel they don't have to, if you want service no matter how bad it is you will come to them.

If every community in the US was like your neighborhood, it would be a different matter. Unfortunately that is not the case for many people who want quality service.

Competition - so you have 1 phone company monopoly, 1 cable monopoly and 1 wireless (near monopoly). Of course if any of those are unusable (bad signal, too far from DSLAM,etc.) the pool thins out even more.

The system has been tuned to soak maximum money from the customers.

If the copper/fiber infrastructure was seen as a monopoly and regulated as such (including prohibited from higher level services) the customer would see maximum competition for the largest part of the services stack. If on the other-hand a monopoly is allowed to extend to the ISP or even content provider level then the customer would see the least competition.

According to this:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/24/bloomberg/bxatt.php
consolidation seems to be profitable. Please keep in mind that is after all the high buck exec salaries and bonuses.

Competition does usually lower profit margin but it also usually increases value to the customer. In competitive markets companies tend to operate more efficiently as well.

No, I have at least 6 phone companies (Comcast, AT&T, Vonage, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile) 3 HSI providers and 4 TV providers (AT&T, Comcast, Dish and Direct TV). How is any one of these companies a monopoly???

All this in little old Olathe, KS.

Just because you don't like to pay for your internet doesn't mean any of these companies is a monopoly, period!

Edited 2007-09-08 19:59

Point 1: competition in the ISP branch is already cutthroat, and that is what will ensure that the average Joe will have enough tube to be happy. Anyway, competition is bad; I read it here, it must be true.

Point 2: Anti-net neutrality legislation is not even on the table. The ruling was against letting the American government regulate bandwidth, which is a good thing.

The reference you made to the 2-tier system in NZ explictly refers to rural Broadband users, not to "suppliers" of the end web-sites.

NZ has huge swathes of nearly empty rural land, after all, and quite a few rural customers live a couple of hours drive from the nearest exchange; my sister lives only 30-45 minutes drive from the nearest city, but is too far away to receive piped-in water, for example.
On top of that, broadband take-up in NZ is pretty low, mostly because it's been priced too high per MB compared with dial-up, for too long -- I think it was arounf $40/month for 512Kb down up until last year, which is the "cost-of-living"-equivalent to £40/month.

I suspect the different pricing reflects the fact the most rural customers don't care about high-speed internet enough to hit a point where automatically installing DSLAMs to rural exchanges becomes cost-effective, so they're passing some of that cost onto the customer.

If Google started their own backbone it would make no difference. The ISPs that are threatening extortion are last-mile ISPs, and Google's dark fiber doesn't run to my house.

Also, it's not the business of government to make it profitable for a business to be lazy/crappy planner/ etc!

If your model is working, CHANGE IT - but DO NOT trample on people's rights, abuse your monopoly, etc to do it.

I don't even blame companies. They exist for profit, nothing more or less. The Government, on the other hand...

True. Capitalist society here in the USA. All companies are out for profit, it's why they exist. It's the government's responsibility to make sure that the corporations do nothing to "harm" society, growth, health and general welfare, etc. by controlling interstate commerce (for example).

That's the problem though. ISPs should expect that users use the bandwidth they pay for. When I sell somebody a service, I expect them to use it.