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."
Wow, that's worse than the Canadian UBB thing! (Score:2)
OK, not really, but it is really fucking stupid.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
If it was truly usage-based, there'd be no cap. You'd start with a basic "0 byte" connection for whatever it costs to operate the line, then pay per GB. (Why 40 GB increments? Why not 128MB or something reasonable? I don't buy electricity in 100 kWh blocks; my meter runs to the 1/10th of a kWh. Sure, advertise the rate as $X per 40 GB if you like, but bill fractionally.)
Thing is, the dominant cost of the network is the static, "0 byte" service. The incremental cost of transfer is very small compared t
Re: (Score:3)
Thing is, the dominant cost of the network is the static, "0 byte" service. The incremental cost of transfer is very small compared to the cost of bandwidth provisioning in the first place. The billing system alone could cost more than the transfer costs.
Exactly. This is why I can't understand the people who promote usage based billing. It seems like they think what would happen is that the 90% of light users would get to pay $5/month instead of $40 and the 10% of heavy users would make up the cost to the ISPs by paying $400/month. In reality, if they set up the billing that way, the heavy users would all cut their usage back until they were paying something closer to the original $40/month that they have a budget for (say, $60/month), which only offsets th
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
This is my view as well. UBB is a great option as long as the rates are reasonable and the datat caps revisited on a yearly basis.
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.
Re:Industry fearmongers. (Score:4, Informative)
the new billing model would need a revamp of the internet protocols. or they could charge per IP, which wouldn't be that strange, but would actually need them to give ip's to people.
but it's ridiculous that they say that new devices like ipad are generating traffic. well doh. but it's not the device, it's the person they sold the service to that's generating the traffic. but it's amazing how you can actually get people to pay more for an internet connection to an ipad than to a netbook, even though the ipad will generate less traffic as it's much less likely to be used for running a torrent client etc
anyways, the caravan goes as usual and they can whinebitch all they want but if they still at the same time want to sell secure, usable connections there's not much they can do about it.
Re: (Score:3)
If it came to that, you could still NAT IPV6. It's just that other than for bullshit like this, there isn't really a need to, ja?
Re: (Score:2)
Somebody mod the parent [slashdot.org] up, he posted as Anonymous.
Amazing how the NATsi's modded him to -1 for bringing up the idea. Just goes to prove his point.
Re: (Score:3)
It was my understanding that the zealots prevailed, and IPv6 NAT was declared a "nonfeature".
As if nobody is going to make software that does it anyway.
What is a business supposed to do when their ISP gives them IPv6 pubic addresses but they still have thousands of IPv4 computers with private IPv4 addresses and site local software that doesn't support IPv6?
Re: (Score:3)
It does apply if they try to charge you per IP. I'd sure as hell NAT my devices then. Try reading the context to his post. I'd think it would also be useful if you have any still useful IPv4-only devices at home, an IPv6 NAT could enable that device to interface with the outside world by doing IPv6 DNS resolution, etc for it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why would you have to NAT in order to accomplish that? Any port based firewall can do this without the overhead, and busted ass stupidness, of NAT.
Re: (Score:2)
You should use a firewall as a firewall not NAT. You are woefully uneducated.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No it does not. In fact many of NAT routers can and will act as a hardware firewall when you disable the NAT.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
You just demonstrated the Anon's point perfectly. mirix gave a reason for users to want to NAT IPv6 - to avoid per-IP billing. You then say a lot of hoopla without addressing the point that IPv6 NAT would be useful in a per-IP billing situation.
Is per-IP billing stupid and unwarranted with IPv6? Yep. Will it exist? Almost certainly.
Re: (Score:3)
This rant might make sense if you completely ignore the context of the discussion, which is about how IPv6 would make it easy for ISPs to see how many different devices people were using and charge accordingly.
Nobody is trying to take things outside of that context except for you, and you are seemingly only doing it for the purpose of justifying a rant.
Re: (Score:2)
So you have to limit the definition of "useful" to reasonable (technically, socially) scenarios.
So you want a real use for IPv6 NAT? Information security. If I have several devices and I don't want the outside world to know how many devices I have, or be able to tell which is which, I can use NAT to make them all appear as one public IP.
Yes, most of the reason for having NAT is not present with IPv6. No, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be possible. It just means you probably don't need it most of the time.
Re: (Score:3)
IPv6 Privacy Extensions are a lame attempt to do what NAT does without NAT. And it doesn't even work -- if you have five PCs each with one IPv6 addresses all connected to the same host at the same time, it's obvious that you have at least five PCs. Moreover, if different machines have different usage profiles then you can track them individually as they change their addresses based on their usage profiles, instead of having all usage aggregated behind one IP address. And making machines change their address
Re: (Score:3)
Slow innovation? My very first thought on reading this amounted to "Cool, time to write a tethering app for the cheapest device they allow on their network".
When you price based on something over which your customers have direct control, expect your consumers to exploit that to minimize their costs.
Re: (Score:2)
Innovation directed toward working around stupidity is inferior to the absence of stupidity.
First they wanted us to buy our music repeatedly.. (Score:3)
...and now our bandwidth too? When will this madness end?
Re: (Score:2)
First they wanted us to buy our music repeatedly
I'm pretty sure "per second playback billing" is next on RIAA's list.
Re: (Score:2)
Jukebox (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure "per second playback billing" is next on RIAA's list.
Pay-per-play for musical recordings has been around since the 1890s. See "Jukebox" on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
but jukebox owners didn't then pay a portion of the income generated by the jukebox back to the RIAA/artists/whoever, did they?
Performance rights for the underlying musical work have been around effectively forever and are currently licensed through JLO [jukeboxlicense.com]. And yes, the major music publishers tend to be co-owned with major record labels. But you are correct that there is a separate right for performing sound recordings through a digital transmission payable to the record label in addition to the long-standing one for performing musical works.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:First they wanted us to buy our music repeatedl (Score:5, Funny)
Unfair, I hear you say? But no! You've got your left channel, your right channel, your center (using data from left and right channels), your left surround (using data from left and right channels), and your right surround (using data from left and right channels).
Clearly that's eight separate audio channels in simultaneous use, requiring eight times the licensing fees. And you do have two ears, right? So you're listening to each of those eight channels twice over...
Now, pay up, serf!
Re: (Score:2)
Now you want to turn the volume up? There's some more potential for other people to hear it! That'll be ( $100 ^ increase in decibels) thanks.
Scaremongering? (Score:2, Insightful)
broadband ISPs COULD charge you per character typed but they don't and probably wont.
Re: (Score:3)
But they're completely possible and it's not unreasonable (in my opinion) to expect it to happen. We've already seen an instance where Comcast blocked/throttled bittorrent in the US.
Re: (Score:3)
The catch right there is that most P2P and bittorrent traffic is not time sensitive and could occur in off peak times.
As for shifting traffic from peak to off peak as they are fantasising, firstly it requires incredibly invasive data monitoring and secondly it forces the users devices to either continually cycle over for hours on end trying to send traffic or the ISP must build in enormous data storage capacity to hold data for hours on end.
Incumbent telecoms want to keep making huge profits from local
Re: (Score:2)
Basically, you still have always-on internet, but your traffic is on low priority.
When you want to do stuff with high priority, you "dial in" or "login", then your packets get "normal priority". Then you can play your FPS or MMORPG.
Once you're done you log-off and go back to "low priority", you can actually still surf the web, send email etc, but it could be a lot slower depending on how oversubscribed the ISP is.
But it all depends on t
Re: (Score:2)
Even the PSTN is contended. While each subscriber has their own copper line to the exchange (the same as each DSL subscriber has a dedicated connection to the DSLAM), neither the switching facilities in the exchange (certainly with electromechanical exchanges) nor the number of 'trunk' lines from the exchange could support every subscriber being on a call at the same time. However the PSTN is well enough provisioned such that it is very rare for a call to fail because there are insufficient resources to han
Buy an ARM seedbox (Score:2)
it forces the users devices to either continually cycle over for hours on end trying to send traffic
Is that such a bad thing? If a home user wants to torrent while sleeping, he could buy a cheap little low-power ARM NAS and use it as a home seedbox.
Re: (Score:3)
The thing that I have a massive i
Re: (Score:2)
When companies are adding caps etc it is because they believe it will decrease costs.
They didn't add a cap. They completely throttled the bittorrent protocol.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (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.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Would you like to buy a vowel?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
broadband ISPs COULD charge you per character typed but they don't and probably wont.
You mean, like SMS?
A charge per 140 characters.
And others could not (Score:2)
Who will get the business?
Who do you have to bribe to make that legal? (Score:3)
These people seem like simple leeches to me. You just want an internet connection. Your probably connecting to your own router doing your own networking.
That's one connection
So you give me the internet and I'll give you the cash. Nobody needs to get screwed.
Wait... Your company bribed a politician, didn't it.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah... billing by device sounds terrible, but then we have this: '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.'
This is not net neutrality, in which ISPs charge third parties for data requested by their own customers, who are already paying.
But if I'm the customer of an ISP, how is paying for the amount of data I transfer over the network not a f
Already the case (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
It turns out that they block http requests if the referrer field doesn't contain 'Android'
The Referer header (sic) or the User-Agent header?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not unusual. In North America, providers often provide data plans that vary
Re: (Score:3)
9 ways to Sunday (Score:2)
Its look like the rapacious beginnings of the cable industry all over again, but this time you count amongst you shaledowns fees for your refrigerator's call to the repairman. 'wonder if there will be an opt out for that?
its looking spooky, people.
Re: (Score:2)
This could be a way for them to acquire more money and appear to be reasonable (by pretending that certain types of data are interfering with their network).
Re: (Score:2)
Tranlsation (Score:4, Funny)
Translation:
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: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Do you pay for how much TV you watch? I'm not talking about channels, but how much time you spend watching it, and on how many TV's you watch it on within your house? (again, I'm not talking about since the switch to digital or the equipment for Satellite, as the comparison there would be if you couldn't use a router on a cable or dsl modem due to the physical nature of how it works.. it would be like needing a cable modem for each computer connected, in wish case you either rent the equipment or buy you ow
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What's the resources usage when transmitting a packet one hop? The electricity to run the router and the space occupied by the router.
Plus the transit fee charged by the upstream provider, which is probably the largest single expense. If I ignore the charges my service provider makes, my internet service costs me almost nothing too.
Re: (Score:2)
Also, bandwidth that is not used is wasted...
Water that is not used can be stored and used later.
Re: (Score:2)
Look, this is not about whether we have an exact analogy between water use and internet use; otherwise we would be back in the "tubes" scenario, right? I'm just saying, it is hard to argue against paying in proportion to how you use, be it bandwidth or not.
It isn't all that difficult to find a reasonable model - here, meaning one that most people would find agreable, rather than "the most objectively fair" (whatever that means). Assume there is something like a price per minute on the total bandwidth on the
Re: (Score:2)
What are the consequences for not paying the water bills? Won't they eventually take you to court for not paying the bills, even tho they have to keep providing you service?
I do agree with your comment about denial of service attacks, being attacked can become extremely expensive and its not uncommon for moderate strength attacks to be launched, eg enough to push up your costs but not enough to take you offline. It should not be possible for a third party criminal to directly cause you costs in this way.
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.
Traffic hungry iPad? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because xPads are being sold primarily as media-consumption devices - handy personal TVs you can pick up when you feel like a quick burst of Hollywood. They make it easier to consume streaming video on impulse and so people who wouldn't sit in front of a PC to watch a movie will sit in bed watching their mobile device - more convenience = more use.
Real-time streaming also has requirements on network performance (in particular latency) that exceed torrent download. It's not just about the bitcount.
And, just
Re: (Score:2)
Because people with iPads are obviously willing to pay way more than they need to to get what they want, and the ISPs want a slice of the pie like the cell carriers do. Its like the perfect storm of economics and psychology.
Wow, that is garbled. (Score:2)
There's some really garbled understanding of what is going on there.
What I think is fair is something along the lines of the following:
1. Pay some fixed cost per unit time in order to have a connection.
2. Pay per bit sent and received based on QoS.
It seems like the most fair thing to me. Uncapped is just rediculous and a complete lie. The companies shouldn't even be allowed to claim it since it is blatantly false advertising.
Part 2 is the most sensible option. People pay a reasonable price for what they use
And this is news, how? (Score:2)
Now I'm an unusual customer with normally unusual demand and, fortunately, all my wireless service provider does after a I blow through twice the max capacity for the month in just a coupl
Tabloiddot (Score:2)
Is it rampant speculation week on Slashdot? First the ridiculous "Apple's handcuffing web apps!" nonsense from the Reg, and now this completely speculative nonsense? /. standards are really slipping. Can we link to some proper journalism please?
Yes, I must be new here.
DPI Vendor Pimping DPI: Shock (Score:3)
Firstly, the extra volume created for ISPs by iPads is close to zero: they're being used as extra devices in houses, and aren't capable of running any of the bandwidth-intensive P2P applications that (when they're pimping different things) ISPs and vendors are keen to tell us represent 90% of their volume.
Secondly, this is a vendor of DPI kit pushing applications for DPI. But it's a doomed endeavour. It would be impossible to split tariffing based on numbers of devices as the market would react with domestic proxies if NAT didn't provide enough aggregation. So the only way it could conceivably be done would be by inspecting packets at close quarters to see which application is being run. At which point the market would respond with encryption.
What happened to the recent (Score:2)
ISPs... (Score:2)
Hey ISPs? I've got a mind blowing idea, how about you ACTUALLY IMPROVE YOUR SERVICE to keep up with today's standards, instead of trying to live by the standards of the 90s.
just wait for comcast to do this with ipv6 $5+ per (Score:2)
just wait for comcast to do this with ipv6 $5+ per system just like how in some areas they want $8.95 per cable box and $16+ per HD DRV.
Mind Reading? Cool! (Score:2)
> Owen also foresees a billing system that charges less for non-urgent data
That is frigging AWESOME! I can't wait to wire into the mind-reading system that will tell the ISP which data is urgent. Particularly when I'm running data through an encrypted tunnel.
It's also going to have to make a very good estimate of the difference between my concept of urgent and that of every other user on the same shared channel. That will be an extraordinary advance in real-time psycho-analytics.
Unless they are talking a
Re: (Score:2)
How would they know? (Score:2)
I mean if everything is run behind a router (though I guess you might need to add your own) how would they know how many devices are being used?
Only one device hooked up to the internet... (Score:2)
TVs vs toasters, space heater vs several ipods... (Score:2)
If I understand the idea correctly...
it would be like the power company charging you separately for EACH device you've plugged into the wall. Moreover, rates would be dependent on WHAT the device was, not how many WATTs it uses. You enjoy your TV more than your 500watt toaster? the TV costs more. 3 ipods drawing 5 watts each will cost more than that 1500watt spaceheater...
Re:First poster (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Technology to fingerprint an internet node has existed for a very long time - you can tell what OS is running by seeing how it responds to certain requests and "tells" in the format of its icmp/tcp responses in TTL fields, how it adjusts packet windows, etc.. Even if it is behind a firewall/router, a lot of these tells are passed up the link. Theoretically, if an ISP was interested they could keep a record of unique fingerprints they've detected on your connection and bill you for the number of devices they
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like an opportunity for modding the TCP stack to present random characteristics when analysed in this way. When the complaints flood in from some percentage of their users about being billed for having a million devices behind their router, the ISP might think twice about such a scheme.
Unless you're going to get Apple and Microsoft to update their TCP stacks to do this, that "some percentage" is going to be so small as to be quite practical to ignore.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How exactly does paying for infrastructure you use have anything to do with free speech and limitations thereof?
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.
Re:*could* charge .. (Score:4, Informative)
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.
I too am a fan of our uncodified constitution but you went a bit too far here. The European Convention on Human Rights, to which the UK is a signatory, has been in force since 3rd September 1953 and became directly enforceable in UK courts when the Human Rights Act 1998 came into force. Article 10, taken from Schedule 1 to the 1998 Act:
Article 10
Freedom of expression
1 Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.
2 The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but the other problem is that the government is real and god isn't, and certainly isn't about to come down smiting people for alienating the inalienables. Frankly, I think I have more to fear from religious folks than from government types, especially where the two over-lap, which seems only to happen in statistically siginificant numbers in the US and the Middle East. Funny why the two don't get along so very well, isn't it?
Re: (Score:2)
The GP is talking about The European Convention on Human Rights. It has nothing to do with the UN. It is a treaty for the protection of fundamental rights within Europe. The UK is a signatory to the treaty.
Also, do you really think that codifying a law as coming from "God" makes it harder to change? I'd never thought about it before - it's an interesting concept, although I think a modern version would have to be secular. Perhaps a law of the universe? I think that
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
'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.'
I've never heard so much guff.
Charging for bandwidth is exactly how it should work. That's how it works in business, and its just dandy.
The problem will be that the telcos will pick a stupid price per GB
you are right & wrong (Score:2)
as i understand it, at the very highest levels, the debits & credits for a connection is based on how many more bits one backbone generates vs. another backbone over each others networks during a billing cycle.
Further consideration, at the consumer level, this is why home users ABOVE the 99th percentile are the ones targeted for either cessation of service or increased charge.
Re: (Score:2)