British ISPs Embracing Two-Tier Internet 305
Barence writes "Britain's leading ISPs are attempting to construct a two-tier internet, where websites and services that are willing to pay are thrust into the 'fast lane,' while those that don't are left fighting for scraps of bandwidth or even blocked outright. Asked directly whether ISP TalkTalk would be willing to cut off access completely to BBC iPlayer in favor of YouTube if the latter was prepared to sign a big enough cheque, TalkTalk's Andrew Heaney replied: 'We'd do a deal, and we'd look at YouTube and we'd look at BBC and we should have freedom to sign whatever deal works.' Britain's biggest ISP, BT, meanwhile says it 'absolutely could see situations in which some content or application providers might want to pay BT for a quality of service above best efforts.' PC Pro asks if it's the end of the net as we know it."
"above best efforts?" (Score:5, Insightful)
"a quality of service above best efforts."
WTF does that mean? If they can do better, then the "best efforts" wasn't actually the best effort, was it?
How can you have a level of effort above the best?
Shouldn't governments impose balance? (Score:5, Insightful)
Didn't we elect them to make sure that the weak get protected so they don't get screwed over by those that could flex their muscles to browbeat them into submission?
If governments do not serve that function anymore, why the fuck do they exist at all? I can let someone (financially, physically...) strong beat me up and make me surrender quite fine without paying a few dicks to keep a bunch of chairs from flying off planet with their fat asses.
Cheapest is Best (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what the drive to the lowest price possible gets you: a broadband that loses the ISP money in an attempt to get that TV and billboard price-point of £5.99 per month. How does the ISP make money and remain competitive? Answer: more bites at the cherry! Phorm, getting content providers to pay... etc...
Oof (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only does this kill small companies' as well as individual users' chances at internet presence, but what a great way to kill off any p2p protocols by dumping them whosesale into the 'slow lane'.
Re:"above best efforts?" (Score:5, Insightful)
"Above best efforts" really means "above the best effort we are willing to put in, unless you pay us our extortion money."
Two very different things (Score:4, Insightful)
I think absolutely, ISP's should be allowed to provide faster bandwidth for sites where companies have agreed to pay for delivering content to the consumer at faster transfer rates. Those companies are in effect subsidizing higher levels of ISP service for some content; there's nothing at all wrong with that.
The second issue raised, where potentially a company could fork over enough money to block some other service - that's really bad, but I don't see it ever happening despite scare quotes like the ones the article provides. There's simply no way customers would put up with it, and the company being blocked could easily sue the company paying for the block. So who would actually do that?
Remember that you are being frightened in order to be OK with giving over more control over an inherently open internet, to those that want to control content. It's under the guise of protecting you but the first thing you should do when someone says "I'm here to protect you from a horrible danger" is to be very suspicious and ask a lot of questions to find out if in fact there's really a credible threat.
Welcome to the Communications War (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with a lack of net neutrality is that it takes multiple ISPs to carry the packets [ideonexus.com]. So if YouTube agrees to pay for preferential treatment, they're going to have to pay every ISP in the world for it. So one ISP got their check, but the one next door didn't, so they stifle the traffic. What happens when my attempt to ping Google gets bounced out to Europe as occasionally happens?
If we don't get Net Neutrality, we will have a war between ISPs discriminating against each other's traffic, and they will beg for the government to step in to resolve disputes. Once that happens, instead of the simple single rule of Net Neutrality, we will get a patchwork of situational regulations dictated by corporations through armies of lawyers representing their best interests.
Re:Two very different things (Score:5, Insightful)
I think absolutely, ISP's should be allowed to provide faster bandwidth for sites where companies have agreed to pay for delivering content to the consumer at faster transfer rates. Those companies are in effect subsidizing higher levels of ISP service for some content; there's nothing at all wrong with that.
And how exactly do they do that? They do it by delaying the packets sent by those who don't pay extra.
Re:Already here (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't really that content providers can have their applications hosted in end-user service provider networks. The problem is that the TalkTalk representative seems to be open to the idea of content providers paying them money to block out the competition entirely.
Re:Already here (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing's wrong with your scenario. Let's consider if the Internet were not a series of tubes, but more like trucks. Then your trucks to Fox News would get there, load up, and turn around faster because Fox News had a warehouse in your neighborhood. Your trucks to CNN take longer because they've got to get on the highway, head down to Atlanta, and head back to your neighborhood. That's not the proposal here. Suppose both NBC news and CNN were outside your neighborhood. The proposal here is that if NBC paid off your neighborhood association and CNN did not, any trucks coming into your neighborhood from CNN would be made to take the crappy two-lane road with traffic lights and a 25mph speed limit, whereas the NBC trucks would be allowed to use the highway.
Rename the product then... (Score:4, Insightful)
Side note: "TalkTalk" sounds cutesy. I have another cutesy for them: "Bye-Bye", as I cancel my service.
Re:Already here (Score:5, Insightful)
Akamai is very different from a "two tier strategy".
Akamai is all about having local data centers nearer to high traffic population centers. This has the side effect of relieving congestion on the main internet backbones by essentially doing local caching. You want the data, and it happens to be located on a server closer to you, which by coincidence does not have to bottleneck through the backbone as much, so you get better scaling and performance. This strategy is net positive because the internet as a whole benefits by reduced waste and the hosts can deliver content more efficiently with a better user experience.
A two tier internet is something *very* different. That's taking the same pipe, and allocating priority to the rich and powerful at the expense of those who don't pay the premium; there is still the same amount overall of bandwidth available but they want to allocate less of it to you and more of it to companies that pay. How that will actually work is that those who pay more get internet hosting that works, and everyone else gets screwed with a broken, high latency, congested network. Oh, and the price for them will also go up while the service goes down.
Everyone else should get really pissed off about this crap, once they figure out how bad the deal is for them.
Let me put it this way: if this sort of thing is allowed, more advanced internet services developed over the next few years will only be possible when they are run by huge corporations with deep pockets, and all other innovators will be shut out in the cold. And that means you get to pay more for those services because there won't be any competion.
Re:Shouldn't governments impose balance? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's to ensure the people making them rich stay poor enough not to fight back.
Part of being rich is being comparatively wealthy. If everyone became a millionaire, nobody would feel like one, because apart from the rampant inflation required to make such a thing a reality, part of the perk of being rich is having what other people can't. If everyone around you was just as wealthy, you wouldn't feel special.
In a zero sum world where resources are finite, you cannot win without someone else losing.
Re:Shouldn't governments impose balance? (Score:5, Insightful)
If there are no other options, assuming there is no government-imposed monopoly in place, then petition companies to start offering service in your area. If enough people get pissed off with poor service then other companies will jump at the chance to fill the void.
This is tremendously naive. Realistically, the chances of this happening are slim to none. Most consumers will just accept their fate and do nothing (despite the efforts of people trying to get them to stand up), leaving everyone else doomed.
Why do I believe this? I've been stuck with a single ISP for years. If this truly happens, it does not happen in a reasonable amount of time, and I'd rather have a competent government do something about it than wait for a miracle.
Re:Shouldn't governments impose balance? (Score:4, Insightful)
Capitalism naturally weeds out situations that are unsatisfactory to the consumer. If you don't like your ISP with its two-tier Internet approach, use another. If there are no other options, assuming there is no government-imposed monopoly in place, then petition companies to start offering service in your area. If enough people get pissed off with poor service then other companies will jump at the chance to fill the void.
99% of people are ignorant. When they see YouTube videos loading at dial-up speeds, they won't realize it's because it's being throttled - the media certainly won't tell them, especially NBC (now a subsidiary of Comcast). They'll just assume Google's servers suck and decide to instead watch some corporate-approved content at Hulu or something.
The 1% of internet users who are savvy enough to know what's going on are an insignificant speck to capitalists. The costs of building last-mile Internet infrastructure are huge enough to ensure that no business will ever try to get in there unless they can expect to control a big fraction of the market.
Capitalism is vulnerable to tyranny of the ignorant.
Great way to stifle innovation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Two very different things (Score:4, Insightful)
First, they say they'll speed up service for X and Y.
Slowly, your Internet service degrades for other sites. Wondering what's going on, you contact your ISP. They say X and Y's customers are using a lot of bandwidth and thus the infrastructure's getting throttled a bit for others. Nothing they can do about it.
After a while, they announce a grand overhaul of their services so that they can better provide access to sites... but they only speak of X and Y. Turns out the upgrade was done for those and the rest is still on mostly the same thing bar negligible upgrades.
Fast forward a little bit and you'll end up with sluggish access to all the sites that didn't pay. No, they never actually cut off a site or slowed it down on purpose - they just dedicated all their resources to them and let the rest fall to pieces. They have the incentive, they'll do it if they can.
Re:Oof (Score:5, Insightful)
Everybody knows any P2P protocol is strictly used for pirating, so then it's alright!
Those small companies and users are probably infringing something somewhere too, so they're all criminals anyways.
Yargh! Those lilly-livered scallywags wot call themselves "Producers" are pedalin' stolen wares foisted from real Content Producers under legal duress! Aye! The true artisans be shackled and made to slave away in concerts and promo gigs to make ends meat.
I say we smartly keel-haul the dirty bilge rats! Nay, lay siege and claim the bountiful media booty, make like Robin Hood with the lot of it, then scuttle the lot of 'em!
Avast ye thick skulled brutes -- Will not the art-slaves still earn a living prostituting at promo parties, late night shows, and musical venues?
(A cutlass twice sharpened slices doubly)
Re:"above best efforts?" (Score:3, Insightful)
It would be good if the bottom line wasn't pushed down, and if the upper classes were sold in a non-discriminatory way, at fixed prices. The problem is that it's not going to happen that way, it'll just turn into a sell-to-the-highest-bidder situation, where companies will be out-paying each other to get priority over each other's traffic. It'll be a way for ISPs to sell their stuff twice instead of increasing their capacity. Let's say now they charge you a dollar for 1GB of traffic through a 10mbps link, instead of increasing their capacity to sell you 10GB over a 100mbps link at $ 0.7, they'll just charge $1 for 1GB through a up-to-10mbps link, then charge you another dollar to prioritize your traffic over all the torrents and other crap, and then another dollar to prioritize you a bit more. They will be essentially charging you several times for what you are already getting now.
Of course, they'll manage to screw over some people even worse, particularly anyone in need of low-latency communications (think VoIP, etc).
Re:Two very different things (Score:4, Insightful)
Bingo!
This is absolutely the most right-headed (and concise) statement of this problem that I've seen.
All of these guys (congress and parliament included) should be in jail.
Re:"above best efforts?" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Already here (Score:2, Insightful)
This is the thing i am really confused about. Youtube is mentioned, despite the fact that the whole of Youtube is transmitted over edge networks owned by Google. None of that stuff congests the general internet.
They can't make BBC pay either. It is already paid for by the licence. It applies to both sides of the coin, all sides of the coin even. (hence why they can't even put up ads on the site, or have rentals or whatever)
Already i can see this wasn't really thought out particularly well, and as a TalkTalk user, this severely pisses me off.
You can't just throw "low low prices" at us, then whine years later because everyone is using you!
Go whine to BT and government some more, it helped last time! It actually helped!
Interesting post from a UK ISP owner in November (Score:3, Insightful)
I would have thought it would be difficult in the UK as there is more competition. If Fred Bloggs finds his ISP slows down BBC iPlayer then he can change ISP pretty easily. What's the problem?
excuse me, but youre talking like a moron (Score:4, Insightful)
Pause, and think about it for a minute. Does anyone REALLY think an ISP can afford to make 99% of the Web intolerable for its users, without immediately dying a horrible death in the market? No. It won't happen.
stop believing in the 'market' bullcrap. market is the foremost thing that is manipulated on this planet. there is more profit in tiering internet, and ALL isps will be doing it. there will be no problem of 'surviving' at all. it will just be 'standard industry practice', just like how things like these have been, in all other industries unless they were banned.
as a simple example, you can look at how, for some reason, music album/cds are being sold from almost the same rates as records, despite technology changed a lot, manufacturing went to china taking the production cost to dimes, and many corporations seemingly competing in the field.
where is cheaper music in the mainstream market ? where is the competition ?
nowhere. this is what you will end up with internet too, if you keep believing that 'market/competition' bullshit. its something that doesnt apply in real world. it lives in econ 101, 102 books.