In EU, Google Accused of YouTube "Free Ride" 449
An anonymous reader passes along a Financial Times piece that covers a push by EU telecoms to get Google to pay them directly — years after US ISPs began rattling that sword, to little effect thus far. "Some of Europe's leading telecoms groups are squaring up for a fight with Google over what they claim is the free ride enjoyed by the technology company's YouTube video-sharing service. Telefónica, France Telecom, and Deutsche Telekom all said Google should start paying them for carrying bandwidth-hungry content such as YouTube video over their networks.... Some European telecoms groups fear Google will reduce them to 'dumb pipes' because the internet search and advertising company pays the network operators little or nothing for carrying its content. Rick Whitt, a senior policy director at Google in Washington ... said Google was spending large amounts on its own data networks to carry its traffic to the point where it is handed over to telecoms companies round the world." Note that FT.com operates on a "first few per month free" paywall basis.
Interesting (Score:2, Insightful)
Seems like the bandwidth has already been paid for (Score:5, Insightful)
Who pays? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, those poor telecoms that gives their users free access to the internet must be paid back by Google. How does Google dares to provide content and expect the charity telecoms to be the only ones that pay for those bills. I'm outraged.
Wait a minute....
Then why my telecom is sending me a monthly fee?
European Telecoms (Score:5, Insightful)
But the fact is - they are dumb pipes (Score:5, Insightful)
They're getting it wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
The European Telecom operators should know that we, Internet subscribers, pay for our connection top Euros to be able to access sites like Google, Gmail or Youtube. Google is offering most of their services for free to their users and we, as clients of the Telecom companies, are already paying.
At least, Spain's Telefonica CEO demonstates he's just a parasite that doesn't know about what he's talking except getting more money from Google and their clients. If you understand the Spanish talked by a almost drunk man, you'll get the point watching this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVADWAxOZtg [youtube.com]
Isn't someone already paying for this traffic? (Score:5, Insightful)
Like, the customers? If I'm paying for 10GB of data at 10Mbps each month, and the ISP is oversubscribed to uselessness, that's not Google's vault, that's the ISP's false advertising at work.
Note to telecoms (Score:5, Insightful)
Note to telecoms: You were, are, and always will be, dumb pipes. Stop complaining, it used to be that you guys made respectable money selling dumb pipes to people who needed them. Of course, that was back before you became a bunch of bloated gasbags intent on squeezing every last packet out of the internet.
Re:But the fact is - they are dumb pipes (Score:5, Insightful)
Google should charge those ISPs for making their dumb pipes interesting enough for users to buy.
applies to all content! (Score:4, Insightful)
Dear Mr. NuttyProf,
we have noticed you've been having a personal web site since 1993. With the statistics you graciously provide publicly we gather, that your site gets accessed several dozen times per month. Since we provide the channels bringing your content to our customers, we'd like to request you to review the attached contract and initiate a monthly fee of $14.95 in order for us to continue to serve your needs in the high quality you have come to expect of us....
Sincerely,
AnyOfTheLargeISPs
Seems perfectly reasonable to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not cable TV, you can't "unbundle premium channels", stop clinging to your ancient business models and come up with a good one.
What I don't think they've fully thought out is the end-game. Possible options:
1) Google pays them. Google then starts getting invoices from every ISP around, from the little mom-and-pops to the tier-1s demanding a cut of the pie.
2) Google cuts them off so that the above doesn't happen. These ISPs customers start screaming "Why am I paying you for access to the Internet, when you aren't providing it?" and they start switching to other providers that aren't pulling this.
Come on, telcoms! You're already charging users for access to the Internet, and the businesses they visit for access to the Internet. How many more times do you need to get paid?
They seem to think they're in a position of power because they control the "eyeballs", but those eyeballs will go to another provider if you don't provide access to the services they want.
Re:Interesting (Score:1, Insightful)
Google wins the fight. All that Google has to do for any ISP that wants a payoff is to block YouTube for that ISP. The problem is fixed, and the customers will migrate as necessary.
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. Just as it has been "jumping down the throats" of successful European businesses for years. You say successful, I say abusive and corrupt. Go figure.
Re:Seems like the bandwidth has already been paid (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. The bit that really got me was:
Some European telecoms groups fear Google will reduce them to 'dumb pipes'
That is really all that they are, or at least should be. They are not content providers, they are merely facilitators.
Of course they are (Score:5, Insightful)
All this bitching, be it in the US or the EU, is just about the telecoms wanting to double-dip. All bandwidth is paid for, one way or another. In the case of extremely large connections, like connections between Tier-1 ISPs, the cost is shared between the two ISPs. When they peer, it is an agreement where they say "You pay the costs of your equipment and lines, we'll pay the costs of ours, and we don't charge each other anything to trade data." At every level down from there, it is paid by a smaller consumer. If you are a smaller ISP, you pay the bigger ones for access to their networks. Individuals, businesses, etc then pay those ISPs for access to their network. All the bandwidth is being paid for.
They just want to double charge. They want to tell Google that they should have to pay because Google's data goes over their network.
Of course, if push came to shove, I'd bank on Google winning. Dumbass ISP X says "Ok, we are throttling Google traffic and/or blocking Youtube." Google says "Ok, we are blacklisting all your IPs and showing your users a page that explains what dicks you are and what you need to change for us to restore access." My bet? Consumers get furious at their ISP and either force a change, or simply switch to a new one.
What is the purpose of ISP? (Score:5, Insightful)
Providing bandwidth for their users to do what they want? Is that the purpose of ISP?
Or is there any other purpose? Like laying down ground rules, like the Ten Commandments:
1. Thou Shalt Not View Video Online
2. Thou Shalt Not Use Too Much Bandwidth
3. Thou Shalt Pay Through Thy Nose
4. Thou Shalt Obey Everything
5. Thou Shalt Hath No Right
6. Thou Shalt Be Grateful
7. Thou Shalt Giveth Us All Thy Money
8. Thou Shalt Sacrifice Thy First Child For Us
9. Thou Shalt Let Us Screw You
10. Thou Shalt Not Complaint
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
"Why is it surprising? The EU has been jumping down the throats of successful American businesses for years. After they got through with Microsoft, it only makes sense that they would shake down Google as their next target."
Firstly, EU != European Union government in this article, only the EU ISPs.
Secondly, you make it sound like the EU is picking American businesses on purpose.
I guess you're American and thus only hear about the US businesses fined by Neelie Kroes, but believe me, more European companies have been hit than American ones by the anti-monopoly and anti-kartel legislation.
Thirdly, the ISPs are greedy and wrong on this count. They have paying customers. Don't like it that they actually use all of the bandwidth you promised them? Tough luck, find another business model or don't promise something you can't deliver.
Dear Telecoms (Score:5, Insightful)
A dumb pipe is precisely what you are, and should continue being.
The Internet is a "pull" network (Score:2, Insightful)
Those YouTube megabytes are being requested by end users. It is they who are getting the "ride" - and it is usually not free. Google/YouTube is just making content available on demand - as is just about every other data supplier on the net except spammers. The only people getting a free ride are spammers, because they are using a "push" mode. Before they stop or slow my YouTube, which I want, let them do something about spam.
Re:Utter stupidity. (Score:1, Insightful)
It's more like fast food chains suing car manufacturers because drive-throughs attract a lot of customers.
Ironic, isn't it? (Score:5, Insightful)
On one hand we have content providers like Murdoch saying Google should pay them for the content Google is providing access to.
And on the other hand we have telcos saying Google should pay them because they're providing access to Google's content.
It's the fate of any success story; Google has money, they want it for themselves, and they think it's easier to get Google's than to earn their own.
The crazy thing is, they might get away with it (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, yeah, you're all saying "this is crazy, I've already paid for my bandwidth"...and you're all correct, but: /. passim : FCC in USA, filtering in Australia...)
As we've seen here recently, common sense or 'fairness' seems to have little to do with ISP regulation and/or behaviour.
(See
Here in Europe, many countries tax blank media and playback devices [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy] in order to 'compensate' artists for 'lost' revenue.
How long before Europe's telcos, (most of whom have strong lobbying power), actually get something like this either legislated, or get Google to cough up some money just by threatening to get it legislated?
They're already trying to grab some of Google's ad revenue:
"French President Nicolas Sarkozy is mulling a recommendation to impose a tax on Internet ad revenues in France. The proposal is aimed at helping the French culture industries survive the new digital age. But critics say it is absurd, unworkable and will do little more than prop up failing business models."
[http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,670837,00.html]
The customer already paid for it. (Score:5, Insightful)
The ISPs have it all backwards, presumably with full knowledge of the real problem. The customer pays for a connection to the internet. The customer then uses it to access popular services, like Youtube or Facebook or any other of this months fad.
Many ISP has vastly oversold their capacity to their customers and engaged in price fights that has made internet access well below what they should cost. They know its going to be a cold day in hell before the customers agree on a big price hike this late in the game so they try to wring money out of the popular services the customers use their bandwidth on.
Since the ISPs sell access to the internet they have nothing, absolutely nothing they can demand from services on the internet. They made this mess by charging to little for all to much bandwidth, well, sucks to be wrong dont it?
Easily solved.... (Score:3, Insightful)
....any ISP that thinks Google isn't playing fair should just not allow connections to the Google Empire for their customers.
Then we'll see how long it takes for the free-market to self correct. I give it about 30 days, most of that time being required for the ISP to staff up their disconnections department.
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course the argument is flawed. Google is not pushing data. Their clients want to access Google, and are paying for that.
I'd say, if Google and all the other online services didn't exist, the ISPs wouldn't exist either (why the hell would we pay them?). So I'm hoping they're told to fuck off.
Re:Utter stupidity. (Score:4, Insightful)
Before using that analogy remember that some toll roads already charge you more if you have a bigger vehicle and people seem to think that is ok.
Re:Interesting (Score:1, Insightful)
It's worth noting here that the FT is a Murdoch paper, and that Murdoch has a real hate-on for Google at the moment. A pinch of salt may useful for some of the opinions tossed around as fact in TFA.
Also, if Google end up having to pay ISPs in Europe, you can bet lobbyists will use that as a reason to reopen the debate stateside.
Re:Interesting (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
All I can say is Jackass!
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/07/business/canadian-lumber-penalized.html?pagewanted=1 [nytimes.com]
Canadian Lumber penalized
http://www.google.ch/search?hl=en&ei=J0PES87yPOiXOP3XjdkP&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&ved=0CAcQBSgA&q=American+steel+tariffs&spell=1 [google.ch]
"American steel tarriffs"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2004/apr/28/brazil.usnews [guardian.co.uk]
"American Cotton Subsidies illegal"
My point is that America is neither better nor worse with respect to breaking the trade rules games.
But because of jackass's like you, you think that it is poor poor America that always suffers! BS!
Again I am not saying America is good, nor bad. America is dealt bad cards at times, and deals bad cards as well. So if you are going to complain please keep the argument to Google and the ISP's and not "America" and "Europe"
'dumb pipes' (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Seems like the bandwidth has already been paid (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe their concern is that it'll become obvious to everyone that they're dumb pipes, and that they're dumb pipes whose business model, pricing infrastructure can't cope with piping all that well.
Solution: Stop peering with Google (Score:5, Insightful)
Duh. STFU and just stop peering with them if you don't want the traffic. Of course then your customers won't get anything back when they request pages from Google. Good luck with that. Maybe they'll feel better when you pass along all your network cost savings to them. Right.
Bullshit PR aside, the facts are plain: Your continuing to peer with Google is proof you believe you derive positive economic value by serving Google's content. Given this reality, maybe now you can explain carefully why Google owes you something?
And when you're done answering that question, how about this one: Why is it that with TV distribution it's the cable providers paying the content providers, not vice versa as you'd propose Google do? Why shouldn't you be owing them money, for turning your dumb pipes into something people will pay $50 a month for?
This is journalism? Does the Financial Times just run press releases now?
Re:Interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Utter stupidity. (Score:5, Insightful)
jealous (Score:1, Insightful)
I heard those comments months ago in Spain from Cesar Alierta, CEO of Telefonica. He sounded flamboyant and depreciative, almost threatening his own clients to cut the pipes if Google would not share their benefits with them.
TELEFONICA is been called TIMOFONICA ( scam-o-fonica) by spaniards for years for their greedy approach to the business, with all the benefits they made during the .com bubble era and the consistent poor service, and high prices they delivered during the 90's when they where an almost monopolistic ISP in Spain. Now that they are been side-tracked by new business models that make benefits out of offering 'gratis' services they are suddenly surprised for not been able of making loads of money by barely making their job, and they are simply jealous.
Let me tell you something: we are all ready to show then our middle finger.
Re:Accounting (Score:2, Insightful)
But, wouldnt the hotel have to borrow money to pay back the rich man, thus going into debt again?
Re:Seems like the bandwidth has already been paid (Score:4, Insightful)
I notice that all on the companies mentioned are ex-state-owned companies. Basically they're the old monopoly telecoms who got to lay the telephone lines in the past using taxpayer's money and later got privatised, keeping ownership of all that infrastructure.
Even though in most (maybe all) of the countries where those companies are based laws were passed forcing them to provide access through their lines to any company wanting to work as an ISP (a boon to competition and why Internet access is faster an cheaper in most of Europe than in the US) they are still meaningful because they own the last-mile infrastructure and get paid by ISPs that use those lines to provide Internet access.
They still retain many of the bad habits from their days as a state own monopoly (big, fat and uncompetitive) and have only remained in their positions because of the huge barriers to entry in the landline telecoms infrastructure business.
Given that I would say that these big, fat behmots are worried about high-bandwith Internet services because they have in fact not updated the infrastructure:
- Until now they were relying in advances in xDSL technology to provide ever increasing speeds on top of the existing POTS copper lines. This improving of xDSL technologies is now slowing down while at the same time government have suddenly discoverd it's fashionable to rant about the need for universal high-speed Internet access to "liberate Europe's creative energies" and "Create the jobs of the future". This means that a critical mass is building that would lower the barriers to entry (or make it a better investment) to lay fiber-to-the-home.
Once other companies have replaced enough of the installed base of last-mile POTS copper wires with fiber these guys (who never had to face any real competition in the landline telecoms business) will likelly shrink to nothingness.
This is why they're trying to hold the tide.
Re:What is the purpose of ISP? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the reasoning of the ISP's is not that Google is causing their pipes to get clogged up, but that Google is succesful with their services because the ISP's are providing their customers with bandwidth. If they didn't provide the bandwidth, Google wouldn't even exist.
If they didn't provide the bandwidth, they wouldn't exist, as their customers would switch to their competitors who did provide that bandwidth.
They're trying to get a free ride off Google's success, when all they really are is "dumb pipes". Google doesn't reduce them to that, it's what they are by nature, and for some reason they desperately wish they were something else.
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
Why have all these criticisms of the EU been modded Troll?
Probably because there is no (-1, Factually Incorrect) moderation, for which quite a few of the anti-EU posts in this discussion would qualify.
Alternatively, (-1, Offtopic) would be more relevant in several cases, since we are talking about EU ISPs here and not European-level government.
Also, who said anything about Europeans "punishing success"? Again, this isn't the people of Europe acting, it's the ISPs. In case you hadn't noticed, almost everyone in this discussion thinks they're just making a greedy cash grab, including the commenters from Europe.
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
The EU ISPs aren't the first ones who suggested this [washingtonpost.com].
To the ISPs who complain that Google turns you into a "dumb pipe:" Yes, that is the idea. That is the service that we, as consumers, buy from you. We would be quite happy if we could lease some relatively inexpensive, and very dumb pipe [wired.com]. Google doesn't pay you to ship their content, because *we pay you to allow us to fetch that content.* Last I checked, you made some decent money doing so. Stop treating our broadband connections as a revenue stream and start treating it as the service it once was.
Re:Seems perfectly reasonable to me... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
No it's worse than that.
How it is:
User pays their ISP for their connection
Server owner pays their ISP for their connection.
How the ISP's want it:
User pays their ISP for their connection
Server owner pays their ISP for their connection.
Server owner pays every other ISP again and again and again.
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't agree.
First, even if there was such argument, it would be from *consumers*, not the ISPs, since it's the costumers who are paying for the bandwidth, as you rightfully said.
But unlike the ISPs, who *are* being paid for the bandwidth and now want to double charge, in the case of Google, nobody's paying for their service; ads are their only payment. What you're saying is that Google should provide those services without any kind of payment.
Personally, I prefer to watch some ads than to pay for a Google subscription.
Re:European Telecoms (Score:4, Insightful)
All ISPs sell bandwidth proportional to usage cycles. Your government doesn't build roads for everyone to drive the same mile of it at once. Your local restaurant doesn't cook all a day's meals at once. It's natural, considering not everyone uses their full service all the time, to sell proportional to usage patterns.
The problem is that most ISPs these days use a ratio that is well behind the actual usage patterns of their users. An ISP will likely never build out for the full burst bandwidth of all users combined exactly once. There's no need to do that. However, they should build out enough capacity to cover what their users are actually going to try to use, plus about 50% for news peaks when everyone is checking for headline updates.
Re:Interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
"Thirdly, the ISPs are greedy and wrong on this count. They have paying customers. Don't like it that they actually use all of the bandwidth you promised them? Tough luck, find another business model or don't promise something you can't deliver."
And, that is the entire story in a nutshell. I don't download and upload 24/7 - but if I felt like it, that's my right. I'm paying for the service, they promised a little more bandwidth than I EVER see, so I can use it. It ~15 gig of download per month is breaking them, then they should have priced it 5 or 10 dollars higher.
The killer is, I know that I have dozens of neighbors who go online to check their email, browse around for 1/2 hour, play a game or two, then shut their computer down. They never download ANYTHING. Even families with kids who download a lot of music don't use all their bandwidth. Phhht. Every one of us is being overcharged, if you ask me.
But, I don't want to see a pay system that charges for actual bandwidth used, either. You KNOW that when they convert, they'll round up, then pad the figures, so that I'll be paying triple my present fees, for less than half my bandwidth!
An honest question (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree that they are dumb pipes, however, that got me thinking about the arrangement I have with my cable company. What's the difference between the data (content) I am receiving over my net connection, and the data (content) I am receiving as my television service? I don't mean the bits and bytes here, I mean the actual content. My cable company would like to call themselves a 'content' provider, but they aren't making those television programs, they are simply passing them to me through a pipe. That being said, why should that part of my service be any different from my internet?
This is sticky because I realize that the actual content providers GET PAID to have their shows broadcast/provided. Does that mean that the internet is upside down? Should the local ISP's actually be paying Google for their content?
Dumb Pipes always (Score:3, Insightful)
They were dumb pipes even before... Imagine how it would be if they were not, you are talking on the phone with a friend and one of you mentions Pizza, suddenly a local Pizza delivery place is connected in to the conversation and asks if you would like to order a Pizza (You and your friend were actually just talking about how the Pizza made you both sick recently)
Or even more chilling, one of you mentions some thing that, taken out of the context of your conversation, seems dangerous or illegal - and the phone call is dropped. You were planning an attack in World of Warcraft or one of the Battle Simulators and click, no phone call anymore.
No Telcos have *always* been dumb pipes.
Re:What is the purpose of ISP? (Score:4, Insightful)