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Internet Caps - The New Net Neutrality?

edited June 2008 in Technology
I've been reading more about the Internet Cap ideas being floated by Cable and Telco ISPs and I'm beginning to think this is some sort of attempt to get around Network Neutrality.

Currently, in the cell phone industry, some carriers (sprint in particular comes to mind) offer unlimited calling when you call someone in network. Call someone out of network and you use up your minutes.

When (or if) the big ISPs all go back to bandwidth[download] caps on their broadband plans what is there to stop them from doing the same thing? Do current laws stop them from offering "free bits" if you are using an in-network service?

I hate to sound like a crazy person but putting caps on Internet access plans is a big step backward. I also need to investigate some of the regulatory issues here. AFAIK only cable companies are running trials on broadband caps. As I mentioned in an early discussion I have an older "grandfathered" broadband plan and telecos traditionally have had to honor grandfathered calling plans until the subscriber changes to something else. They don't have to offer the old plan to new customers but they can't force a customer off of an older plan.
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Comments

  • I'm not sure about the U.S but, here in the UK there is already caps on a lot of broadband packages. like 4Gb p/m download limt. After that you get a very limited rate that's barely enough to check your emails. That's unless you want to give them more money and they'll unlimit your speed. There are some good ISP's that have no limits and the power users here tend to gravatate towards them. But it sounds like the trend might migrate over there.
  • edited June 2008
    Please note that bandwidth cap != download cap, though the terms are often used interchangeably.

    Here in Australia no decent ISP offers a good unlimited plan; the vast majority of plans have a download limit, and, once this is exceeded, have shaping (limiting download bandwidth to, typically, 64kbit/s). Despite this, we have some plans with caps big enough that it doesn't matter.

    The plan I have is ADSL2+ with 40GB peak / 110GB off-peak, and I pretty much am unable to completely use that cap, despite a fair amount of p2p.

    A couple of ISPs I know of offer some useful servers of their own (e.g. servers with common / popular files, game servers) to which access is not metered. This makes some sense also.
    However, in Australia we have a reasonably competitive market, which is a big plus, and should prevent degradaton of service.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • A couple of ISPs I know of offer servers of their own (e.g. servers with common / popular files, game servers) to which access is not metered. This makes some sense also.
    This is what I am specifically concerned about. Right now Yahoo and AT&T; (formerly SBC) have an agreement in place where their DSL service is co-branded as "AT&T;/Yahoo DSL". What is in place to stop an AT&T; from putting a download cap on their service plan but allow any and all bits originating from Yahoo to not count against that download limit?
  • edited June 2008
    Yeah, I wanted to focus in on that, because I knew that was your issue, but I didn't really know what exactly to say.
    I would suspect that there is, indeed, nothing in place to prevent that kind of thing in most places in the world.

    It is certainly true that the potential consequences of such are very worrying indeed, however.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • The core of this issue really focuses on two things. There is the issue of false advertising, and the technological issue.

    The false advertising is a pretty simple thing to grasp. The ISPs advertise unlimited service, but really it isn't unlimited. This needs to be corrected. If they want to offer unlimited service, it had best be truly unlimited. If they are going to put a limit on it, they need to say so. That's just how it has to be. The thing is, they can't actually offer unlimited service.

    That brings me to the technological issue. Yes, once a connection is setup, it doesn't cost more money if you send more bits across. A wire costs what it costs to lay and maintain the wire, plus the machines on either end, plus the electricity. More or less bits does not increase the cost. This gives you the illusion that the bits are free, and you should be able to pay a fixed cost. The problem is that while your ISP has all sorts of peering agreements with the Internet backbone, your ISP customer network is a heirarchy, not a web or mesh.

    You have a tiny pipe to your house. Your pipe and all of your neighbor's pipes go to the local loop which has a bigger pipe. However, if all of the little pipes turn up full blast, the local loop's pipe will fill up. All of the local loops go to the ISP. Even though the ISP has huge pipes, if all of the local loops fill up, the ISPs pipes will not be able to handle it.

    Think about the way a local gym makes money. They sell lots and lots of memberships, but only a small fraction of the people who join actually come and exercise. If everyone showed up, there would not be enough exercise machines for everybody. They profit by getting people to sign up who don't show up, or show up very rarely.

    The ISP is the same way. They do not have enough exercise machines to handle the situation where everybody downloads movies all day. If you want them to go out and buy that many exercise machines, but you want to keep the unlimited plan, everyone will be paying hundreds a month for all that fiber. That's very unfair to people who don't use much.

    I agree with Dvorak on this one. Bandwidth should be metered, just like water. The meter just has to be adjusted properly.$1 per gigabyte per month is pretty good for now. The average user uses under 40g, so that' sunder $40 a month for most people, that's very reasonable. In the future, as podcasts and such expand, the average user might be under 100g per month. The rates on the bandwidth then will need to adjust so that maybe 1g is 40 cents.

    This kind of setup will allow the ISP business model to remain reasonable, so they won't have to give every single customer their own ludicriously expensive OC3. It will also allow extremely light users, like my grandparents, to pay almost nothing, but still get the benefits of being online. If we want the false advertising to go away, which we do, then unlimited has to go as well. It's just the reality. Metering based on usage is the only reasonable alternative anyone has come up with. As long as the rates are fair, it won't be a hindrance.
  • In a trial in Beaumont, Texas, new Time Warner customers can buy plans with a 5-, 20-or 40-gigabyte cap. Prices for those plans range from $30 to $50. Above the cap, customers pay $1 a gigabyte. Plans with higher caps come with faster service.
    Cable tries 'Internet metering' of users


    $30 for 5GB is a pretty shitty deal. $50 for 40GB is not quite as bad.
  • $30 for 5GB is a pretty shitty deal. $50 for 40GB is not quite as bad.
    The pricing on that plan you just posted is ludicrous. I mean, look at it. $30 for 20g with $1 per gigabyte after the cap? The initial $30 for 20g is worse than the penalty fee for $1/g! Even the cellphone companies aren't that stupid. They charge you something like $5 or $10 for hundreds of text messages, but then charge 10 to 25 cents per message for going over. If the penalty price is better than the default price, something is wrong.

    Also, there is a difference between true metered Internet and tiered plans. I'm advocating true metered Internet. They can have a small flat monthly fee, maybe $5, just to have the service, but if I don't use it for a month, I shouldn't pay anything. Tiered plans are no good because someone who uses their entire cap exactly pays the same as someone who went on vacation. It needs to be like water or electricity where they measure how much you use, an you pay accordingly.
  • edited June 2008
    My biggest problem with this argument is that it could just be the ISPs making up how bad things are to get, what seems to us, compromise but is in fact them screwing us over. My suspicion is that they go on and on about how much their network is being hurt instead of doing something to improve it. This comes down to the fact that they are the only ones who know whether or not the network is hurting and have no incentive to be honest about it.
    Post edited by Omnutia on
  • My biggest problem with this argument is that it could just be the ISPs making up how bad things are to get, what seems to us, compromise but is in fact them screwing us over. My suspicion is that they go on and on about how much their network is being hurt instead of doing something to improve it. This comes down to the fact that they are the only ones who know whether or not the network is hurting and have no incentive to be honest about it.
    I thought I just explained this to you. The network isn't necessarily hurting. The thing is that in order for the business model to be feasible, they can't build a sufficient network. Unless you want everyone to pay T3 prices for Internet, the ISP will not have enough bandwidth at the top level to satisfy all users at the lower level. Just a few people using bittorrent raises everyone's costs substantially. It's the same deal where how a few people committing insurance fraud raises everyone's premiums. The difference is that with bandwidth we actually know who is using the most, and we can charge accordingly.
  • edited June 2008
    As someone who works with this stuff everyday let me tell you that Gigabit switches are not cheap. Not only are they not cheap but when you consider the sheer quantity required within the telco infrastructure you begin to realize that Cisco can not make them fast enough. I wish I could say more but anything other that that is proprietary information.
    Post edited by Apreche on
  • edited June 2008
    I totally disagree with Devorak! Sure, $1 per gig per month is fine NOW, but what about in a few years when files get bigger and speeds get faster? This is all a preemptive scheme by the ISP's to get around neutrality and charge for something that they really don't own.
    My biggest problem with this argument is that it could just be the ISPs making up how bad things are to get, what seems to us, compromise but is in fact them screwing us over. My suspicion is that they go on and on about how much their network is being hurt instead of doing something to improve it. This comes down to the fact that they are the only ones who know whether or not the network is hurting and have no incentive to be honest about it.
    I agree with this as well.
    $30 for 5GB is a pretty shitty deal. $50 for 40GB is not quite as bad.
    The pricing on that plan you just posted is ludicrous. I mean, look at it. $30 for 20g with $1 per gigabyte after the cap? The initial $30 for 20g is worse than the penalty fee for $1/g! Even the cellphone companies aren't that stupid. They charge you something like $5 or $10 for hundreds of text messages, but then charge 10 to 25 cents per message for going over. If the penalty price is better than the default price, something is wrong.

    Also, there is a difference between true metered Internet and tiered plans. I'm advocating true metered Internet. They can have a small flat monthly fee, maybe $5, just to have the service, but if I don't use it for a month, I shouldn't pay anything. Tiered plans are no good because someone who uses their entire cap exactly pays the same as someone who went on vacation. It needs to be like water or electricity where they measure how much you use, an you pay accordingly.
    Scott, you're assuming that the companies won't be in cahoots like they already are (you know how you have no option for ISP in most areas?). They'll all collude, jack prices to the obscene rates already going in Australia and the UK, and no one will be able to do anything. This is no way helps consumers and is sort of like RIAA demanding you re-buy music for your home stereo, car, portable device, and every computer you own. This is a money-grab and nothing more. Plus, this will completely fuck over gamers in the future when games get beefier and require more information going back and forth.
    Post edited by GreatTeacherMacRoss on
  • I agree with Scott & Dvorak on this, though I'll admit that it's partially because his true metered system would be an improvement over my current situation.

    In a decent metered system, most people would likely only pay a few dollars a month. Would I be correct in assuming that most of the voices in this little debate are of people who have something to lose in a metered system? Do you all know how much bandwidth you actually use?
  • edited June 2008
    I totally disagree with Devorak! Sure, $1 per gig per month is fine NOW, but what about in a few years when files get bigger and speeds get faster? This is all a preemptive scheme by the ISP's to get around neutrality and charge for something that they really don't own.
    What don't they really own? They own the pipes you want to get Internets from. Did you not hear the part where we discussed how the rates would have to change as bandwidth became more plentiful?
    Scott, you're assuming that the companies won't be in cahoots like they already are (you know how you have no option for ISP in most areas?). They'll all collude, jack prices to the obscene rates already going in Australia and the UK, and no one will be able to do anything. This is no way helps consumers and is sort of like RIAA demanding you re-buy music for your home stereo, car, portable device, and every computer you own. This is a money-grab and nothing more. Plus, this will completely fuck over gamers in the future when games get beefier and require more information going back and forth.
    First of all, the companies are not in cahoots. In fact, they are the opposite of cahoots, they are completely separated! The reason there is no option in most areas is because of the reality of last-mile wiring. That's a local monopoly, the exact opposite of collusion! Even in Manhattan, where there are multiple providers, the vast majority of connections are really just Verizon because they own the last-mile wires. However, you can get many microwave-based point to point connections that are not Verizon. That tells me that the ISP monopoly issue will be resolved when wimax comes about.

    The reason rates in Australia and the UK are so crazy is not because they are ripping people off. The reason is that they live on islands that only have a few trans-oceanic cables. All of Australia only has so much bandwidth. The cost of laying more trans-Atlantic cable is insane. Bandwidth is in low supply there, and high demand, thus the price is high.

    You people are all accusing the ISPs of being evil. They're evil now for falsely advertising unlimited to you. You don't have unlimited now! What they want to to is switch to reality. They're going to be less evil. You people also seem to be making these assumptions about bandwidth being somehow infinite. Did anyone listen to us. There isn't enough to go around. We can't have unlimited, it's not economically or technologically feasible.

    You can't have unlimited. You don't want metered. What do you want?
    Post edited by Apreche on
  • The illusion of unlimited is there until everyone starts using what they think they have.
  • Scott raises a good point that most of us in the US never even think about.

    The vast majority of Internet infrastructure (servers/pipes) resides inside the US. When we go to google.com we are going to a server that is located inside the US. Those of you who live outside of the US do have the additional hurdle of connecting to the US. That connection (between the US and non-US) is another bottleneck for you to overcome.
  • RymRym
    edited June 2008
    The reason rates in Australia and the UK are so crazy is not because they are ripping people off. The reason is that they live on islands that only have a few trans-oceanic cables. All of Australia only has so much bandwidth.
    This brings up another interesting point. Only in America do we have the privilege of having the majority of the Internet's content on our own continent, doubly so for English-language content. Australians wouldn't pay nearly so much for bandwidth if they had more content at home, reducing their dependence on the United States. Instead, nearly all of their net traffic goes out through their tiny and expensive pipes.
    Post edited by Rym on
  • edited June 2008
    Thats a real advantage to the ISP file mirrors in Australia. I can actually obtain the speed I signed up for when compared to downloading the same file over the Pacific.
    Post edited by Tyashki on
  • edited June 2008
    I thought I just explained this to you. The network isn't necessarily hurting. The thing is that in order for the business model to be feasible, they can't build a sufficient network. Unless you want everyone to pay T3 prices for Internet, the ISP will not have enough bandwidth at the top level to satisfy all users at the lower level. Just a few people using bittorrent raises everyone's costs substantially. It's the same deal where how a few people committing insurance fraud raises everyone's premiums. The difference is that with bandwidth we actually know who is using the most, and we can charge accordingly.
    My point being: Who was it that told you that?
    Post edited by Omnutia on
  • My point being: Who was it that told you that?
    It's pretty transparent if you work with higher-tier ISPs or with the technology in general. The cost of bandwidth upstream from your ISP is pretty high: much higher than what you pay for your equivalent connection. Look up the prices of DS3s, OC3, T1, and other circuits, nevermind peering agreements and other costs.
  • Unless you want everyone to pay T3 prices for Internet, the ISP will not have enough bandwidth at the top level to satisfy all users at the lower level.
    So it's just a series of tubes?
    In a decent metered system, most people would likely only pay a few dollars a month.
    If you believe this, then I've got a bridge to sell you. Just look at Time Warner's pricing in Texas. Right now, the average user pays around $30 per month. There is no way that the internet service providers will accept a pricing scheme that involves anything less than that. Most likely, they will want to increase revenues.
  • edited June 2008
    A standard T1 (1.5Mbps) will cost you about $600 a month. You can get up to a 10Gbps service but I don't even want to begin telling you the logistics required or the price. We use 10Gbps in house but I think the biggest pipe I have installed is 1Gbps.

    Take a look at the Cisco 7600 series of routers. These things are not cheap nor are the circuit packs that go into them.

    If I had to guess I would say that Rym's company probably has several 1Gbps or even 10Gbps circuits going into their data center. They are likely designed in a load balancing way so that no one pipe is ever more than 60% full.
    Post edited by HMTKSteve on
  • Just look at Time Warner's pricing in Texas.
    I said a decent metered system like the one Scott put forward, not one we have seen thus far and may never see. I don't have to look there to see how bad it can be.
  • The issue of bandwidth caps is quite different from the issue of net neutrality.

    The net neutrality debate is over whether ISPs should be allowed to grant certain content providers or applications some kind of preferred status, in addition to charging for bandwidth. There's no question that it costs money and manpower to maintain the network, and that ISPs should charge their customers for use of that network. So while we can argue about how ISP rates should be structured, I don't think slapping the net neutrality label on that argument is warranted or helpful.
  • The issue of bandwidth caps is quite different from the issue of net neutrality.

    The net neutrality debate is over whether ISPs should be allowed to grant certain content providers or applications some kind of preferred status, in addition to charging for bandwidth. There's no question that it costs money and manpower to maintain the network, and that ISPs should charge their customers for use of that network. So while we can argue about how ISP rates should be structured, I don't think slapping the net neutrality label on that argument is warranted or helpful.
    Where they crossover is that if ISPs start charging based on download caps they can coerce Internet-based companies (NetFlix, Apple, etc..) into deals where the bits their customers exchange with those companies do not count towards the customers download cap.

    If you, as a customer, are given the choice of using two different video on demand services that deliver content via the Internet but one of them does not count towards your download cap which one will you choose? If company A has an agreement with my ISP and that 1GB per movie does not count towards my monthly download cap/costs why would I want to use Company B if every movie I watch costs me an extra $1 in usage fees to my ISP?

    It is that sort of leverage that can make or break an Internet based service company such as NetFlix and even Apple's iTunes.
  • Steve has a pretty good point, you know. You should have read his first post better.
  • If you, as a customer, are given the choice of using two different video on demand services that deliver content via the Internet but one of them does not count towards your download cap which one will you choose? If company A has an agreement with my ISP and that 1GB per movie does not count towards my monthly download cap/costs why would I want to use Company B if every movie I watch costs me an extra $1 in usage fees to my ISP?

    It is that sort of leverage that can make or break an Internet based service company such as NetFlix and even Apple's iTunes.
    While this is possible, it's a slippery slope argument. Metering usage on the one end vs. charging the content providers on the other end are two separate issues. Just because you can tie them together, doesn't make them part of the same discussion.
  • edited June 2008
    charging the content providers on the other end
    Erm, no, that's not what he's talking about at all???

    He's talking about ISP's "choosing" not to meter content from certain places, but metering everything else. Hence it very much IS to do with metering.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • While this is possible, it's a slippery slope argument. Metering usage on the one end vs. charging the content providers on the other end are two separate issues. Just because you can tie them together, doesn't make them part of the same discussion.
    lackofcheese has already pointed out that his ISP does not "charge" when customers download from their servers.

    I don't know about Verizon but I have my DSL through AT&T; and I get pretty much every Yahoo service for free. My flikr account is the unlimited variety yet I pay nothing extra for it. I have friends on the "free" side and they tell me about upload caps and such things.

    The slope is not that slippery because they already do things like this.

    In fact, last year there was some new movie over the Internet service (movielink maybe?) that signed an agreement with AT&T; where all AT&T; DSL customers got about 20 hours of free usage from their service. I didn't take advantage of it because they had a crap movie selection (and I had a crap computer).

    Being able to waive the "per Gb" surcharge is huge. Even more so as we move forward towards HD quality downloads.
  • lackofcheese has already pointed out that his ISP does not "charge" when customers download from their servers.
    What cheese is talking about is not traffic shaping, he's talking about proxying. In order to reduce traffic on the undersea cables, the Australian ISPs will host servers to proxy data from overseas. So they will download GeekNights and Firefox to their servers, and then everyone using that ISP will get those files from those servers instead of downloading the same data over the ocean multiple times. It just makes sense, it's not a violation of net neutrality.

    As for the other things you are talking about, those are also not a violation of net neutrality. You only violate net neutrality if you do something to the packets on the network. Giving you a free Flickr account is a nice incentive to make you choose their ISP, and also to choose Flickr. However, they aren't giving Flickr packets a priority over Picasa packets. That would be a net neutrality issue.

    Yes, it would be bad if they let Yahoo! traffic go unmetered while Google traffic was metered. However, it is possible to properly meter traffic, as a utility, without doing this. Thus, it's a separate issue. You're basically trying to argue that metering is bad because it opens the door to something else that is bad. While that may be a concern, it still doesn't change the fact that proper metering is the answer. Pretty much every argument people make against metering is base on some assumption that the metering will be done improperly. Stop making assumptions that the metering will be done in some evil way, or come with evil attachments. Try to argue that proper metering, as we have described it, isn't a good way to go.
  • edited June 2008
    Metering is good. I am with you on that.

    The thing is that much of the Net Neutrality debate was set off by these famous words of former SBC CEO Ed Whitacre:

    “How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?” – SBC: ain't no way VoIP uses mah pipes! (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051031-5498.html)

    You do need to realise that the former CEO did not have a computer in his office and was really ignorant of the digital age. Compare this to the new CEO of AT&T; who loves computers has an iPhone and Blackberry etc...

    Going to metered Internet does mean that someone pays the freight for the traffic that goes across the network. However, knowing that not everyone on the network will be using NetFlix it becomes a wonderful deal for the ISP to get NetFlix to pay for traffic that may or may not be used. It is also a win for NetFlix because all those ISP customers will be inclined to use their service because the traffic is not metered. This then leads to all the NetFlix type service companies also paying what amounts to an access fee just to gain parity with the competition.

    ISPs want to make money. If they can't do it by selling "fast lane" access they will be more than happy to make it by selling "unmetered access" to their subscriber base.
    Post edited by HMTKSteve on
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