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General discussion

Bell South/SBC Controlling the Net?

Feb 3, 2006 6:33AM PST

Uggh.. I hate it when you guys keep saying "The ISP's don't get it..."

The whole offering of the priority service to the content provider's is to give them another speed offering similar to how you can buy different service tiers from your ISP.

What is wrong with a content provider paying a bit more for better than best effort Internet delivery? If customer's are capable of paying for higher speed access, why aren't content provider's capable of paying for faster service? The Internet is not a guaranteed service offering, if Bell South/SBC or whoever is guaranteeing a speed, then you have the option to take it or not!

I just think that it's funny that you guys keep blaming the ISP for creating a service that is charging content provider's more money.... (Kind of ironic that CNET is a content provider!).

I think it would be a great idea if I can guarantee a tv over IP service to my users if I pay a bit more without worrying that someone else is using up the pipe for something else!

Don't half the content provider's pay Akamai millions of dollars a year to host their content so it can be delivered faster?

WHO DOESN'T GET IT? Stop brainwashing your users.. it's nice to have a 50 foot view and blame everything without any real thought!

Discussion is locked

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But that's the point
Feb 3, 2006 6:40AM PST

I suspect troll here, but what the hay.

Time and again we've stated that th epoint is that content providers and internet users ALREADY pay for access, so why should they pay again!

What the backbones are asking is to leapfrog over the ISP portion and charge content providers again to get guaranteed speeds. Content providers already pay hosting/access fees usually based on bandwidth usage. Why should they have to pay twice.

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Is that really a point?
Feb 5, 2006 11:42AM PST

I don't think they will be paying twice... It's like paying 10$ for a 256 kbps access, and paying 5$ more to have 512 kbps...

To get better quality, like Quality of Service, and guaranteed speed, you pay a bit more. What's wrong with that? If the internet is moving towards higher speed content delivery and requiring 5 Mbps, shouldn't a content provider have a service that guarantees the 5 Mbps of bandwidth?

If the hosting fees are saying each Mbps is x$, then saying for about y$ more, you are guaranteed that the subscriber gets a certain bandwidth rate, I think that's very reasonable.

It's like paying money for a very bad service and paying a bit more for a better service. Once you pay for a better service, the ISP is bound to guarantee it.

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I don't think it's the same thing
Feb 5, 2006 1:12PM PST

It's more like paying $20 a month for the ISP, and then having the ISP ask you to pay extra if you want to get certain sites delivered faster. Or maybe a better analogy is to pay a webhost $100 a year to host your site and then having them charge you extra to have it delivered faster to certain customers.

I already pay for flat access in both cases. I'm not being asked to pay more for faster flat access, I'm being asked to pay more for selective delivery. Google already pays for access to the backbone. Then they'r ebeing asked to pay extra for faster delivery to certain customers not faster delivery period.

Maybe an even better analogy is if I pay $20 to Earthlink and then Verizon comes calling and says I have to pay $20 to have my email delivered to any of their customers without a delay. I already pay Earthlink to deliver my email on the Internet, why should I pay Verizon for 'faster delivery' to its customers. And then I have to pay AOL, MSN and others too?

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Protection Money
Feb 6, 2006 10:31AM PST

What people are getting at is that by prioritizing bandwidth, you are inherently degrading other packets. For those not familier with packets, think of it as a line of data streaming through. If you say to a router, deliver these packets first, they are taking cuts so to speak. Sorry for the grade school language, but that is how I see it as.

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Protection Money
Feb 7, 2006 4:47AM PST

Right, so if someone pays for it, and the pipe is full, then that person that paid would get the content up faster! Stuff like VoIP (especially with 911 calling) really requires this!

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I'm starting to see your point
Feb 7, 2006 4:45AM PST

Ok folks, I agree that a subscriber shouldn't be paying for extra costs if they are paying for a pipe. However, you might already be doing so by certain content (pay per view sites, higher bitrate MP3's, etc.)

Anyhow, I think the best solution is not for the ISPs to charge the users, but to offer a guaranteed rate to their backbone providers. The hosting companies have the ability to sign up to this for extra costs, and if not, then not...

I still believe QoS is required. My previous company was thinking of offering video over internet, but couldn't guarantee that the viewer, paying x dollars for the show, could get the video at a good rate or not. If my company paid an extra few bucks and can guarantee it to the user, GREAT!

Anyhow, my biggest original beef is that the buzz out loud podcast is really opinion geared but discussed like it is the "status quo". They have 1 view and that's it.

Recently they talked about legal music P2P and fair share through an ISP. They made comments saying "It'll never happen", etc. However, I think there are ISP's in the UK already doing this! I just don't want them to influence the market with comments so drastic rather than really arguing and or commenting that it is a personal opinion.

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Fair enough
Feb 7, 2006 8:20AM PST

I think we take it as given that what we say is our opinion, so it's a good double-check when you call us on stuff.

I for one, appreciate it. It's always productive to be intelligently challeneged on your viewpoint! Thanks for the healthy discussion.

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Why ...
Feb 7, 2006 5:16AM PST

... do we pay so much for "high speed" internet access, when there are other countries (Japan, for example) that offer high speed access that are FAR faster than our speeds, and pay less for it? We're falling behind the curve ..

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Population Density
Feb 7, 2006 5:31AM PST

I think the main reason for faster broadband in Europe and Asia is higher population density. It is much more efficient for a company to go in and put fiber to the premisis in a small geographic area. Out in the western U.S., there is just too much open space between customers in some rural locations that it just isn't cost effective. Of course the telco's get tax breaks by promising to build out their networks as in Pennsylvania, but they refuse to do so.

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Population Density and government regulations
Feb 7, 2006 11:51AM PST

I've also did some research on this and found that to deploy the gear to get online, you need a healthy subscriber to equipment ratio. For places like Hong Kong, Japan, etc, where everyone goes online, it is cheaper and a better business model for them to do so.

In areas in the US, Canada, etc. there aren't as many people going online.

Finally, larger telco's and cable companies are sometimes under government regulation to prevent monopolies and need to allow the smaller mom & pop shops to keep competitive.

But, the biggest surprise is that the government has given a big break in the US to grow the high speed network and hasn't delivered... sigh.