The Day the Internet Died

[FluffyMcDeath]

Seems like Net Neutrality, which has been the foundation of the internet since its inception, is going to become the property of the powerful opinion makers.

Well, not entirely. In an almost completely Republican push (though 6 dems joined the republicans and 2 republicans voted with the dems) the House has passed a bill to overturn the FCC's rules to keep the net open to all comers.

It is unlikely to pass in the Senate and the White House has said it will veto.

 

[cybereye]

Seems like Net Neutrality, which has been the foundation of the internet since its inception, is going to become the property of the powerful opinion makers.

Well, not entirely. In an almost completely Republican push (though 6 dems joined the republicans and 2 republicans voted with the dems) the House has passed a bill to overturn the FCC's rules to keep the net open to all comers.

It is unlikely to pass in the Senate and the White House has said it will veto.

I rather stick Net Neutrality. I understand some of the unfair drawback. At this point, the other solution is not so great either. I think it even worst. If the other companies don’t like it then get out of the networking or start their owns network system.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

I rather stick Net Neutrality. I understand some of the unfair drawback.

I'm not sure what you mean by "unfair drawback". Net neutrality is utterly fair in the sense that everyones packets are treated equally. This sort of regulation is necessary simply because there is no free market in the internet. All the little guys on the end of the pipes are beholden to a small number of huge carriers. Laying in enough new infrastructure to become a player in this market is prohibitive and there aren't that many institutions foolish enough to lend enough to someone who will get crushed and absorbed by the established players.

Alternatively the government could step in to break up the big telcos (as they broke up AT&T) so that there would be openings for competitive startups to enter.

 

[cybereye]

I rather stick Net Neutrality. I understand some of the unfair drawback.

I'm not sure what you mean by "unfair drawback". Net neutrality is utterly fair in the sense that everyones packets are treated equally.

Web sites like Google, Hulu, yahoo, MSN, or any popular web site that streams video or sound are taking up bandwidth that they don't pay for it. While Internet provider had to updating the infrastructure for speed to reduce the bottle neck of their own network, not expands. If it is not expanding without getting more cash flow then it taking a hit as loss. Net neutrality is fair that everyone packets are treated equally, but is not treated fair base on bandwidth used.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Web sites like Google, Hulu, yahoo, MSN, or any popular web site that streams video or sound are taking up bandwidth that they don't pay for it.

All those sites pay for their connection. They pay for the bandwidth of their connection. In other words they pay to be able to cram their packets into the network at a given rate. Users of those services also pay for their connection and pay for their bandwidth which is the amount of packets over time that they can get from the network.

If you have a connection that is 50Mbps 24 hrs a day then that defines how much data you can shove into the network. The limits are already there. If the networks are congested then it looks like someone oversold the service - probably knowing that most people would never fully utilize their connection. That means they are actually selling something they don't really have.

Customers (hulu et al) pay for their bandwidth right now. If I want a fatter pipe I pay more money. That's fine. But it would be wrong to have to pay more to have your packets prioritized over someone else's packets - that's what the issue is here.

What the backbone providers would like is to be able to sell products that compete with Hulu but that can run faster than Hulu if Hulu doesn't pay up. If some kid sets up a streaming video site in his garage right now then even if he is paying for sufficient bandwidth to launch his site he will still end up getting his packets queued behind someone who is paying to have their packets go ahead. This effectively reduces a connections actual bandwidth while still charging for the full rate.

Ending net neutrality would also allow the network owners to charge different packets at different rates. They could, if they felt like it, (and they do) apply a surcharge for all skype calls, take a cut for any streaming video, etc, and pay by the email similarly to how cell phone contracts get split down into little services and text charges, etc. Being able to shape traffic and bill by packet type would allow the networks to create complicated packages that would confuse customers into buying more than they need (and spending too much).

The common carrier model is the better way to go. Imagine if the telephone companies had been able to sort out the different kinds of calls and charge for them differently. How would technology have been different if the telecos could have decided that they should charge more for modem calls or surcharge fax calls, bill business calls at a rate different from calls to your mother, etc.

 

[Glaucus]

Fact is that ISPs make money because of Google, MSN, Hulu, etc. If the content providers didn't provide content, there would be no need for the ISPs, now would there? The thing is, there's no bandwidth problem really, at least, not one they didn't create themselves. They've been over selling their bandwidth for years, and all of a sudden people found ways to make use of the bandwidth they've been paying for and the ISPs are freaking out. ISPs have always assumed that not everyone would be making full use of their bandwidth at any given time, so they could sell 10Mb steams to 20 houses on a block and simply connect them all to a 100Mb pipe. That worked for a while, but then people discovered P2P and video streaming, and all of a sudden all 20 houses wanted to make use of their 10Mb bandwidth and oops, they could only get half of that. The ISPs didn't want to admit they were over selling their bandwidth, just like airlines don't like to admit they over sell their flights, so of course they have to blame P2P and then NetFlix and Hulu and their "greedy" customers.

But anyway, there's more to net neutrality then that. The thing is that ISPs are also content providers. Which means it really has nothing to do with bandwidth because the bandwidth is available. See, if you decide to watch a movie from a competitor, then the bandwidth gets real tight, so you'll need to pay extra for the ISP to send a guy out and stretch out those pipes for that video to fit through. But before they do that they'll also tell you that if you watch that same movie on THEIR service, well, those pipes can be opened up at for a much smaller fee!

In other words, net neutrality enforces a free market. ISPs can continue to provide content, but they should not have an unfair advantage over other content providers who are not also ISPs. This makes it fair for all content providers as they will have access to all the customers. But the good news for customers is that they have full access to all content providers. The alternative would force you to not just pick your ISP, but what content you want as well, as one would determine the other, and there's no way you can tell me that's a good thing. At least, not for consumers.

 

[cybereye]

I understand both of your view and I agree, but I may not make it clear. I was talking about bandwidth in the backbone, not the end users side of the network. For example, Google have their own internet provider and many time it needed to get a cross a few different backbone. I am sure part of the AT&T backbone got overload because that slow down and many end users are complain about AT&T service. Google does not have internet backbone. So who fault for flooding the packet?

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

For example, Google have their own internet provider and many time it needed to get a cross a few different backbone. I am sure part of the AT&T backbone got overload because that slow down and many end users are complain about AT&T service. Google does not have internet backbone. So who fault for flooding the packet?

A backbone segment is such a large capital commitment and there is such a built in advantage to having already installed backbone that it is almost impossible for a competitor to succeed in attempting to install and profitably run a parallel segment. 360 Networks ran huge amounts of fibre to lease out for better capacity and the big players simply refused to play along, starving 360 until they could take over the entire new fibre for pennies on the dollar. Because of this huge barrier to entry backbones have monopolies on carriage and, as with all monopolies, they need to be heavily regulated to prevent them from raping the consumer. There is no free market in backbone.

 

[cybereye]

360 Networks ran huge amounts of fibre to lease out for better capacity and the big players simply refused to play along, starving 360 until they could take over the entire new fibre for pennies on the dollar.

The big players are Web sites like Google, Hulu, yahoo, MSN, or any popular web site that streams video or sound? Agree with that?

Because of this huge barrier to entry backbones have monopolies on carriage and, as with all monopolies, they need to be heavily regulated to prevent them from raping the consumer. There is no free market in backbone.

Net neutrality created packet value for free and created more demand on the bandwidth side. The backbone owners are trying to find a way to pay for cost of network equipment to improve the bandwidth as you said “no free market in backbone.” Network equipment and services are not cheap and the main reason it kills 360 Networks and I don’t think I will see any new small backbone players. The backbone owners made a point that Google in some way are attack their network by flooding. I am just saying that the drawback about net neutrality in the corporations point of view, but great for the consumer point of view. I am in favor with the “net neutrality” cause as you had said about “regulated to prevent them from raping the consumer.” There got to be a better system that can deal with packet and bandwidth with a fair value.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

360 Networks ran huge amounts of fibre to lease out for better capacity and the big players simply refused to play along, starving 360 until they could take over the entire new fibre for pennies on the dollar.

The big players are Web sites like Google, Hulu, yahoo, MSN, or any popular web site that streams video or sound? Agree with that?

No. You are completely mischaracterizing the situation. Google is a non-player in the carrier space. Hulu is a non-player in the carrier space. This is all about carriage. The content providers provide the content that makes the internet actually attractive to people and in the sense of content they are big players but that is NOT what the issue is about. The carriers hold all the cards. They could, if they wanted and were given the freedom to do so, cut a deal with microsoft's Bing
and cut google out of the action.

 

[Glaucus]

Fluffy pretty much nailed it there. Like I said in my first post, without google, hulu, netflix, and all other content providers there would be no ISPs because no one would care to be on the net. Except for maybe a few nerds playing with irc and ftp.

 

[cybereye]

Fluffy pretty much nailed it there. Like I said in my first post, without google, hulu, netflix, and all other content providers there would be no ISPs because no one would care to be on the net. Except for maybe a few nerds playing with irc and ftp.

FluffyMcDeath and Glaucus are talking about content within the internet. Before the internet, it was call BBS. There were many BBS that providing content. In my view, ISP and some big BBS gave more users to explore the information on the internet without the big content providers. Without the ISP and BBS in the past, Internet would not have gotten big as it once was a private networking because only a few had connection to the Internet. Thanks to all ISP and BBS. I remember how fast transfers rate was going so fast from 300 bps to 30Tbps. Why US internets seem to halt on the speed of broadband? Net neutrality causes that problem, who knows. All I am saying is that Net neutrality is not perfect and there is a drawback. Content providers do not pay for the flood of the internet backbone. If the hacker want to flood one of the ISP’s backbone and surely the hack will pay for the damage it cause. The flood cause by Content providers and hackers is the same effect as it slowdown the backbone. ISP can’t improve with the current rate we pay for. Without ISP there would be no google, hulu, netflix, and all other content providers because ISP rely the support from enduser.

 

[ilwrath]

Content providers do not pay for the flood of the internet backbone.

That's just wrong-headed thinking, though. Google, NetFlix, et al *DO* pay to put their packets onto the internet. I *DO* pay for packets to be delivered to me.

Who's not paying here?

If the pay rate isn't sufficient for the backbone providers to survive, maybe they need to review their peering agreements. I'd fully support some light being shown on those.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

The flood cause by Content providers and hackers is the same effect as it slowdown the backbone. ISP can’t improve with the current rate we pay for.

Improve the backbone, and yes it can be done the way we currently pay for it. A lot of what we hear from the backbone is quite frankly not completely true - and they say it because they want the power that the rule changes would give them.
They are Italian football players rolling on the ground holding their shin and waiting for the ref to card the content providers.

 

[faethor]

Content providers do not pay for the flood of the internet backbone. If the hacker want to flood one of the ISP’s backbone and surely the hack will pay for the damage it cause. The flood cause by Content providers and hackers is the same effect as it slowdown the backbone. ISP can’t improve with the current rate we pay for. Without ISP there would be no google, hulu, netflix, and all other content providers because ISP rely the support from enduser.

3 years ago I left the telecomm industry. The old company had a significant fiber network throughout the state. We didn't make money from Hulu or Netflix directly as they weren't on our network. However, we do make money from the AT&Ts and other networks to transport traffic on ours. And there was no exclusion for a 'hacker flood'. Which means we made money.

Increased bandwidth was increased bandwidth. In the ISP world you charge the end user for their bandwidth and you charge the provider for their bandwidth. A Hacker Flood would increase the traffic on both ends and if one is charging by bit both payments go up accordingly.

We did notify people monthly of increases in the form of a bill. We'd notify clients immediately because large attacks would cross thresholds set in the monitoring systems. The clients got an automatic email that say hey your bandwidth just jumped by 3x you better check it out. Should a 'hacker flood' occurr not only should their internal systems catch it our systems (external to the user) will catch the unexpected and non-normal increase in traffic and send a message to their IT Department.

Now I wasn't at a large number of ISPs so I don't have a wide sample set to present here. At my current employee we have two providers one has monitoring and one does not, for example. Most Hacker Floods were short lived and came from our upstream providers. They, in turn, paid us more money for the extra traffic. And the receiving customer's bandwidth went up and they in turn (assuming billed on bits/sec) paid us more.

 

[cybereye]

We didn't make money from Hulu or Netflix directly as they weren't on our network. However, we do make money from the AT&Ts and other networks to transport traffic on ours.

That's just wrong-headed thinking, though. Google, NetFlix, et al *DO* pay to put their packets onto the internet. I *DO* pay for packets to be delivered to me.

Thanks faethor for backing me up and correct my error. So ilwrath is wrong in that thinking of content providers that paid for the backbone.

Improve the backbone, and yes it can be done the way we currently pay for it. A lot of what we hear from the backbone is quite frankly not completely true - and they say it because they want the power that the rule changes would give them.

I am not so sure about that point of view. I have seen some ISP that has Cell phone service and it seem that they are putting more money into that Cell phone service rather than the backbone. Cell phone service has many different price ranges and there is no blocking from other content providers. So what is the real answer of Net Neutrality? I don't have the answers. I do question the ISP and content providers what behind of their view of "Net Neutrality". From what I got from them is no hard fact from either.

 

[ilwrath]

Thanks faethor for backing me up and correct my error. So ilwrath is wrong in that thinking of content providers that paid for the backbone.

I don't think that is what faethor is saying. (And please, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, faether.)

What he's saying is that he worked for an ISP. That ISP didn't get paid directly by content providers. That ISP got paid by subscribers to that ISP. (The end users like me.) These people PAY to have content delivered to them through this ISP. This ISP also has an agreement (which may include payment) with their transport provider.

Big content doesn't primarily use an ISP, per se, but they do have peering agreements with transport providers, as well. These are detailed and complex traffic contracts. The internet backbone doesn't just have an open end you can dump packets into and expect them to be delivered. This is a binding contract (equivalent of PAYMENT or including PAYMENT) for big content to put their packets out there. Individual hops traffic takes along the way will also be subject to peering agreements when transferring between networks.

So, I ask again, WHO'S NOT PAYING?!

Put another way... (A -> B -> C -> D) Right now, content company (A) has an agreement with transport network (B), who has an agreement with ISP (C), who has customer (D). Customer (D) pays ISP (C). Content provider (A) has an agreement with transport network (B). Transport (B) and ISP (C) have agreements with each other. What gives ISP (C) ANY right to charge Content (A) directly? They already have an agreement with the group they're getting the traffic from -- transport network (B). Content (A) is NOT getting a "free lunch."

 

[Glaucus]

Not sure what the confusion is all about. Hulu isn't getting free internet. They pay some ISP for their service. That ISP just wasn't the ISP that Faethor worked for. Regardless, some ISP is getting paid to host Hulu and that money goes towards the overall internet infrastructure, just like when I pay to have internet access. Fact is both ends pay for internet access and typically corporations pay a higher price then home users. So I'm not sure where this myth came about that Hulu and Google don't pay their share, they most certainly do and they most certainly pay more then their fair share.

 

[faethor]

We didn't make money from Hulu or Netflix directly as they weren't on our network. However, we do make money from the AT&Ts and other networks to transport traffic on ours.

That's just wrong-headed thinking, though. Google, NetFlix, et al *DO* pay to put their packets onto the internet. I *DO* pay for packets to be delivered to me.

Thanks faethor for backing me up and correct my error. So ilwrath is wrong in that thinking of content providers that paid for the backbone.

ilwrath and glaucus have this correct.

Content providers pay for their bandwidth to their ISP. The ISPs together transport over each other's networks with peering relationships and pay for this. The ISPs also have bandwidth paid for by the end user.

It's simply the case that Hulu or Netflix aren't housed out of the ex-ISP. They likely have servers on both costs and probably some more around such as Chicago and Denver.

For example, I had Akamai on my network. They cache heavy objects such as pictures and video for many companies. At the time Apple was one of their clients. As an end user you paid the ISP for bandwidth. When you downloaded something from Apple the light content -- text -- comes from one of our partners through a peering arrangement. The heavy content comes directly from the ISP. Apple pays their ISP for the light content. Apple pays Akamai for the heavy content. Akamai pays the ISP. So in the end Apple has paid to send traffic on my network. And the end user has paid to receive such traffic. When Apple sends more over my network they pay me more. Doesn't matter if there's a hacker event or not. This money goes through intermediaries just as the bandwith does.

As was said -- there's no free lunch for content providers.

 

[cybereye]

ilwrath and glaucus have this correct.

As faethor correct my error and clear up the argument about who paid the bandwidths.
I still have a mix view on the Network neutrality. I try to see both sides of the arguments for network neutrality. Here the link about opponents network neutrality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Ne ... #Opponents
I am going to end my arguments here because there is no answer, but theory on network neutrality.