British ISPs Could 'Charge Per Device' 194
Barence writes "British ISPs could start charging customers depending on which device or which type of data they're using, according to a networks expert. 'The iPad created a very interesting situation for the operators, where the devices themselves generated additional loads for the networks,' said Owen Cole, technical director at F5 Networks. 'The operators said "If we have devices that are generating work for us, this gives us the ability to introduce a different billing model."' 'The operators launched special billing packages for it, which is in direct contravention to net neutrality,' said Owen. 'If things are left to just be driven by market economics, we could end up with people paying for the amount of data that they consume to every device and that would not be a fair way to approach the market.' Owen also foresees a billing system that charges less for non-urgent data, with an email costing less per bit than either Skype or video packets that need immediate delivery."
Industry fearmongers. (Score:4, Insightful)
I would also advise against it because the industry is leading consumers into an "online world", where all data will exist.
If infrastructure can not handle the load (how much dark fiber do we have in the world?), then it needs to catch up. Living off the 90s infrastructure boon is just not going to cut it.
Scaremongering? (Score:2, Insightful)
broadband ISPs COULD charge you per character typed but they don't and probably wont.
Fair? Hardly (Score:3, Insightful)
I can see where they are coming from, in a sense: you should pay for how much you use, which is hard to argue against. After all, that's how we pay for other resources we use - I don't use the internet for watching movies or other high-bandwith things, so why should I pay more to support those that do?
However, what they propose is almost exactly the opposite of paying for what you use; it's like being billed for water by measuring the size of your garden or the number of taps in the home. And just as for water, it is perfectly easy to measure the actual consumption; if they don't know how, I am sure there is a large proportion of /. readers who can help them figure it out.
Re:Scaremongering? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's the simplest mechanic of leverage. Shift general *perception* by suuggesting something insane, then 'settle' with a half measure.
It's all about making net neutrality seem like an extreme Communist Terrorist conspiracy instead of reasonable practice. Eventually, you just know they'd charge per device though.
ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
iPads don't use anymore bandwidth than any other device will that you can watch over the air video on. iPads cannot in principle do anything at all any other computer cannot do. This is pure gouging. Note that it is the cellular carriers themselves that have pushed video on command. The goal is good enough broadband that these and many many other applications can run for everyone everywhere. This is not achieved by nickel and dime-ing us.
Re:*could* charge .. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) British law has no interpretation of "free speech". None. It's an assumed "right", not an actual one. Funnily, we seem to do a better job than those countries *WITH* such laws.
2) Even in countries that proclaim "free speech", nobody is ever obliged to provide you with a platform. They can't *stop* you from saying what you want, but they aren't obliged to publish your every word online, or in the papers, or the 10 o'clock news.
You can say what you like (under certain limitations, in ANY country that has "free speech") but nobody is obliged to give you a soapbox. Certainly not your ISP, who can cut you off if their T&C's say you shouldn't swear on their forums, in theory.
3) The ISP's are putting out a code to discuss traffic management, which most of the big ISP's are signed up to. Nowhere does it mention an inherent restriction on free speech. You might have to pay for to push your speech over bittorrent than over email, but see #2.
4) The UK is actually pretty aware of what's happening. ID cards were scrapped last year, by public demand, before they were ever used. It's actually the second time we've scrapped them because they were made compulsory during the War for security reasons and then we got rid of them when they were no longer required. It's MUCH harder to get rid of something you've spent government money on to establish and which would be cheaper to keep running, but we've done it twice.
We are one of the few countries in the world that *doesn't* have an ID system - I do *not* have to own any ID whatsoever, I certainly don't have to carry it on me at any time, and if I don't drive/fly then I probably don't have a passport or driver's license and thus no formal ID whatsoever, and yet I still could live quite happily in the country. You can open a bank account with a birth certificate and an electricity bill, if you want (i.e. something that says X was born on day Y with no way to prove you're X).
I *do* now drive and fly so I have license and passport but I've only *ever* been asked for them when driving (to ensure I had a valid licence, and it was only by luck I was carrying it because I'm not required to, and could instead present it within 14 days at the police station of my choice at a police officer's insistence AT BEST) and for crossing international borders - at the insistence of a foreign entity (the British passport has a kind of mystique about it outside the UK - nobody bothers to check them, or see the "UK" part and then wave you through).
My ID spends more of its life gathering dust than anything else. Sure sign of 1984, that is. Or I could mention that our privacy and data protection laws are some of the best in the world. Or I could mention that we have things like Hyde Park Corner. Or I could mention that, actually, for a country with NO formal rights to free speech, etc. that we're actually pretty damn high up on the list of freedoms we *do* enjoy.
Stop reading the tabloids, and instead look at what a UK person does during their lives compared to any other country (including the US!). Driving laws (ever roll through a stop sign in the US? I once saw a guy who "failed to come to a complete stop" at the line and he was taken out of the car at gunpoint. Do it in the UK and nobody would even notice. Which one is more reminiscent of 1984?). Privacy laws. Data laws. Telecoms laws (we made BT scrap Phorm, and initiated a legal case). Equality laws. And they *work*, for the most part. Sure, Phorm should have never got off the ground, or the ID card scheme, but when they do and come to the public knowledge, they end up dying a death.
Come live in the UK, and see what a real country is like. You can cross the road where you like, and everything.