It's time for my last entry on net neutrality for the class... and I have to admit, from today's news I can tell that this blog is going to be fun to write...
If you recall, last week I mentioned that the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Kevin Martin, scolded Comcast for their throttling techniques. Apparently, tomorrow the FCC is set to officially vote against Comcast on this - note that no fines are going to be assessed, but instead they're going to issue a simple censure (an "official" reprimand). However, they are likely to require that Comcast submit any network management techniques to the FCC for advance review and approval as well as advance notification to customers.
The FCC seems to want to put Comcast and other ISPs on notice to tread carefully, and specifically to not single out any particular application without due notification to customers. Oh, the horror, the horror - having to actually notify customers of how traffic will be handled! Wait a minute. That seems perfectly reasonable. Well, obviously not to everyone...
Today, John Boehner, the House of Representatives minority leader, sent a tersely worded letter to Mr. Martin. In it, he stated that the FCC is on "shaky legal and procedural grounds" because the FCC has never gone through the formal process of adopting regulations regarding the Internet or the ISPs. So Rep. Boehner's condemning the action over a gripe that the FCC didn't previously adopt regulations? Somehow the irony is lost on him that he and the telecommunication companies have previously expressed that they want the FCC to stay away from making regulations.
In his letter, Rep. Boehner states that the FCC actions are "heavy handed" and that they would be, "essentially regulating the Internet." (Emphasis added by me - keep reading for why.) In addition, he quotes a Wall Street Journal editorial that says, "the FCC's job is not to determine business models in the private sector." Hmmm. Good point. What is the FCC's job exactly? Probably no better place to look than to go straight to the source.
On the FCC's web page it states, "The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. " (Again, the emphasis was added by me and hopefully it's pretty obvious why.)
Ummm... am I missing something here? This lack of sincerity is laughable! Aside from the fact that it is expressly the FCC's job to make regulations, now they're up in arms because they don't like the direction it's taking. Not to be overly ironic, but isn't Kevin Martin a political appointee from the same party as Rep. Boehner? Give me a break!
Finally, I certainly can't end without putting on my 'conspiracy theory' hat one last time.
Over the years, I've made more than a few contributions to political candidates, their parties, and other organizations. Consequentially, I'm on all of the recurring "send us more money" email lists. Last month I received several emails, urging me to make a contribution because June 30th was the end of the quarter for reporting results. The funny thing? I received the emails on July 2nd and 3rd. I checked the email headers and they were all sent on June 28th and prior.
Truth be told, I don't honestly believe there was a deliberate attempt to delay these emails (well, I'm pretty sure at least). However, utilizing "deep packet inspection" techniques, this would be a very easy way for an ISP to slow, delay, or even "lose" politically motivated e-mails where they disagree with the subject matter. Not incidentally, I'm seeing more and more reporting on the potential for nefarious uses of deep packet inspection. You'd be well advised to watch for suspicious delays as well.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Tiered pricing and fairness
As I've been typing these blogs, I realize that my views on the Net Neutrality debate are refining a bit. In my first post, I defined Net Neutrality as "the idea of passing data packets without a 'gatekeeper' either blocking them or showing any preferential treatment". However, last week I also took exception to ISPs offering tiered Internet packages with usage caps. I want to expand on that topic.
I found this post helpful in separating net neutrality and tiered pricing as two distinct concepts. Basically, if you want high volume usage, regardless of the type of use (altruistic educational purposes vs. less legitimate uses), you need to pay for it. Given a level playing field, I've come to the conclusion that conceptually, I really have no problem with this 'pay-to-play' pricing.
I do enjoy the unlimited usage I currently have and never think twice about it. If presented with usage caps, I could determine my usage requirements and find a plan that offered me a good cost/benefit ratio based on my personal usage. Having said that, it sounds good in theory, but I don't think the playing field is level. If you think it's close to level, don't count on it staying that way for long.
For starters, the various ISP's "unlimited" plans were supposed to be just that - unlimited. As we've seen, these are becoming less and less geared toward offering truly unlimited use as the subscriber sees fit. Until fairly recently, most of the providers were concentrating on improving access speed to remain competitive and prices have remained extremely stable.
Now the ISPs are working on restructuring the pricing plans at the same time that data intensive applications and streaming video usage continues to expand. There needs to be a significant investment in the underlying infrastructure of the Internet for this bandwidth-heavy growth to continue and the ISPs are looking for ways to raise additional capital. (If the ISP's claims are to be believed, something like 5% of users utilize 50% of available bandwidth.)
I feel there's a distinct conflict of interest when the ISPs are also providing content. It looks to me that we're heading toward an 1980-90's model when competing cable companies were offering different channels to watch (i.e. if you want the NFL channel, you need to subscribe with DirectTV). Although I think it's unlikely to actually come to this, as I said in the last post, just wait for the big ISP's to start offering their own streaming music and videos.
However, it also looks like the pricing is going to be a bundled combination of data speed along with usage caps. That really bothers me. I might find that a 15GB limit per month will suffice, but at a speed of 768kbs, its unworkable. Using the same television cable company analogy, it's similar to when they bundle channels you don't want with channels you do want.
To keep this fair and competitive (that level playing field idea), if the ISPs want to proceed with this type of tiered pricing, they should: 1) be prohibited from providing content which gives them a competitive advantage (video/music downloads that don't count toward usage caps mentioned last week) and 2) be required to offer the data speed and usage caps separately in more of an 'a la carte' fashion.
On that second point, if/when tiered pricing comes to town, I think I should be able to choose what upload/download speeds I want and separately choose what caps I want. They're not the same thing and I don't like being pushed into a higher usage cap in order to get faster data speeds. As I type this, I know it's probably wishful thinking on both points. Although both could be incorporated legislatively, I doubt it'll ever happen.
Finally, not directly related, but here's someone with a viewpoint even more cynical than mine - the idea that an ISP with bandwidth caps and overage fees stands to gain financially from illegal peer-to-peer sharing.
I found this post helpful in separating net neutrality and tiered pricing as two distinct concepts. Basically, if you want high volume usage, regardless of the type of use (altruistic educational purposes vs. less legitimate uses), you need to pay for it. Given a level playing field, I've come to the conclusion that conceptually, I really have no problem with this 'pay-to-play' pricing.
I do enjoy the unlimited usage I currently have and never think twice about it. If presented with usage caps, I could determine my usage requirements and find a plan that offered me a good cost/benefit ratio based on my personal usage. Having said that, it sounds good in theory, but I don't think the playing field is level. If you think it's close to level, don't count on it staying that way for long.
For starters, the various ISP's "unlimited" plans were supposed to be just that - unlimited. As we've seen, these are becoming less and less geared toward offering truly unlimited use as the subscriber sees fit. Until fairly recently, most of the providers were concentrating on improving access speed to remain competitive and prices have remained extremely stable.
Now the ISPs are working on restructuring the pricing plans at the same time that data intensive applications and streaming video usage continues to expand. There needs to be a significant investment in the underlying infrastructure of the Internet for this bandwidth-heavy growth to continue and the ISPs are looking for ways to raise additional capital. (If the ISP's claims are to be believed, something like 5% of users utilize 50% of available bandwidth.)
I feel there's a distinct conflict of interest when the ISPs are also providing content. It looks to me that we're heading toward an 1980-90's model when competing cable companies were offering different channels to watch (i.e. if you want the NFL channel, you need to subscribe with DirectTV). Although I think it's unlikely to actually come to this, as I said in the last post, just wait for the big ISP's to start offering their own streaming music and videos.
However, it also looks like the pricing is going to be a bundled combination of data speed along with usage caps. That really bothers me. I might find that a 15GB limit per month will suffice, but at a speed of 768kbs, its unworkable. Using the same television cable company analogy, it's similar to when they bundle channels you don't want with channels you do want.
To keep this fair and competitive (that level playing field idea), if the ISPs want to proceed with this type of tiered pricing, they should: 1) be prohibited from providing content which gives them a competitive advantage (video/music downloads that don't count toward usage caps mentioned last week) and 2) be required to offer the data speed and usage caps separately in more of an 'a la carte' fashion.
On that second point, if/when tiered pricing comes to town, I think I should be able to choose what upload/download speeds I want and separately choose what caps I want. They're not the same thing and I don't like being pushed into a higher usage cap in order to get faster data speeds. As I type this, I know it's probably wishful thinking on both points. Although both could be incorporated legislatively, I doubt it'll ever happen.
Finally, not directly related, but here's someone with a viewpoint even more cynical than mine - the idea that an ISP with bandwidth caps and overage fees stands to gain financially from illegal peer-to-peer sharing.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Time Warner's "Tiered" Pricing
Sometimes I really hate it when I'm right. In the last post I predicted that the pricing would give you less for more. I decided to do some searching on the "tiered" pricing from Time Warner and found this article. I wasn't quite right. You can either get more for more (faster speed for more money) or less for less, but it doesn't look like I could keep what I have now at the price I pay. Also, if you want to go straight to the source, I wish you luck on finding the pricing spelled out. I couldn't find it (and I spent way too much time looking)
Anyway, here's the pricing in a nutshell: It starts at $30 per month for 768 kilobits per second with a 5-gigabyte monthly cap called "Lite" service. (Really Time Warner? 786kbs is broadband service to you?) After that, there's three increasing levels of service ("Basic Tier" with a 10GB cap, "Standard" with a 20GB cap , and "Turbo" with a speed of 15Mbps and a 40GB cap). Anything over the cap will be billed a $1 per gigabyte.
One of the biggest problems is that these are just esoteric numbers to most people. No one knows if they need 10 or 100 gigabytes. From Time Warner's Beaumont page (where this is being tested):
What does 1 GB get you?
So you can better understand what level you should choose, 1GB gets you about 70,000 e-mails, 34 hours of gaming or 1,344 hours of Web browsing; or, it’s the approximate equivalent of downloading 569 photos, 277 music files, 7 hours of low-resolution video (YouTube), 3 hours of standard definition streaming video or 45 minutes of high-definition streaming video.
I tested some of these numbers and was surprised to see that they're fairly correct. However, I'd still be hesitant to pick a level for myself in advance. Since most PCs show network traffic in a measure of incoming and outgoing packets, it's not very helpful. However, here's a handy little utility that does monitor your usage in bytes. I installed it and here's a screenshot:
I tested it with transferring some files and it was dead on. So I suppose if I ran this program for a couple of months, I would probably be able to pick a tiered plan, but I really hope this type of pricing doesn't replace the "all I can eat" Internet buffet I currently enjoy. Not to mention that the average user isn't going to go through this much trouble. (Regardless, you can download this free program here.)
I must be suspicious by nature, because I think there's a lot more to this business model than meets the eye. First, what's going to happen to iTunes, NetFlix "Watch Instantly", Amazon Unboxed, Hulu and others? Video on demand is still in it's infancy. Does that burgeoning business get killed with this type of pricing? I actually don't think so, but NetFlix isn't going to like this theory...
Instead, I think you'll see the ISPs offering tiered pricing and they'll later offer something like their own movie and music downloads. However, any downloads from their site won't count against your monthly allowance. An advertisement could easily be sent to the user when they are near their limit directing them to the site. From my perspective, that should all be treated as illegal tying, but I doubt that would ever happen.
If you're at your monthly limit and you wanted to download a 4GB movie, it would cost you $4 extra for the extra usage under Time Warner's tiered pricing.
Think that might provide just a little inducement to buy from a the ISP's site? Just a tiny bit of an unfair competitive advantage?
I hope I'm making my point here. Net Neutrality isn't simply about how a few packets get delivered. It's ultimately about freedom of speech, freedom of choice, and money. BIG money!
Anyway, here's the pricing in a nutshell: It starts at $30 per month for 768 kilobits per second with a 5-gigabyte monthly cap called "Lite" service. (Really Time Warner? 786kbs is broadband service to you?) After that, there's three increasing levels of service ("Basic Tier" with a 10GB cap, "Standard" with a 20GB cap , and "Turbo" with a speed of 15Mbps and a 40GB cap). Anything over the cap will be billed a $1 per gigabyte.
One of the biggest problems is that these are just esoteric numbers to most people. No one knows if they need 10 or 100 gigabytes. From Time Warner's Beaumont page (where this is being tested):
What does 1 GB get you?
So you can better understand what level you should choose, 1GB gets you about 70,000 e-mails, 34 hours of gaming or 1,344 hours of Web browsing; or, it’s the approximate equivalent of downloading 569 photos, 277 music files, 7 hours of low-resolution video (YouTube), 3 hours of standard definition streaming video or 45 minutes of high-definition streaming video.
I tested some of these numbers and was surprised to see that they're fairly correct. However, I'd still be hesitant to pick a level for myself in advance. Since most PCs show network traffic in a measure of incoming and outgoing packets, it's not very helpful. However, here's a handy little utility that does monitor your usage in bytes. I installed it and here's a screenshot:
I tested it with transferring some files and it was dead on. So I suppose if I ran this program for a couple of months, I would probably be able to pick a tiered plan, but I really hope this type of pricing doesn't replace the "all I can eat" Internet buffet I currently enjoy. Not to mention that the average user isn't going to go through this much trouble. (Regardless, you can download this free program here.)I must be suspicious by nature, because I think there's a lot more to this business model than meets the eye. First, what's going to happen to iTunes, NetFlix "Watch Instantly", Amazon Unboxed, Hulu and others? Video on demand is still in it's infancy. Does that burgeoning business get killed with this type of pricing? I actually don't think so, but NetFlix isn't going to like this theory...
Instead, I think you'll see the ISPs offering tiered pricing and they'll later offer something like their own movie and music downloads. However, any downloads from their site won't count against your monthly allowance. An advertisement could easily be sent to the user when they are near their limit directing them to the site. From my perspective, that should all be treated as illegal tying, but I doubt that would ever happen.
If you're at your monthly limit and you wanted to download a 4GB movie, it would cost you $4 extra for the extra usage under Time Warner's tiered pricing.
Think that might provide just a little inducement to buy from a the ISP's site? Just a tiny bit of an unfair competitive advantage?
I hope I'm making my point here. Net Neutrality isn't simply about how a few packets get delivered. It's ultimately about freedom of speech, freedom of choice, and money. BIG money!
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Net Neutrality & Throttling
Well, here goes my first blog post ever....
Net Neutrality has a lot of definitions, but when I talk about it, I mean the idea of passing data packets without a "gatekeeper" either blocking them or showing any preferential treatment. I think my opinion on the subject would probably become quickly apparent based on what I write. However, just to make sure there's no ambiguity, I'm in favor of it - with a caveat.
The caveat is that I have no problem with throttling of peer to peer sites (P2P) or BitTorrent networks. Yes, I know that there's legitimate uses of each, but we're all adults here. We all know that 99%+ is illegal. Come on - you want to watch The Dark Knight on your PC? You have to accept there's going to be blocking/throttling. Throttling essentially being when an ISP turns down the speed, either across the board or with selective types of packets (again, see P2P).
I don't care if it's Net Neutrality is accomplished through service guarantees or legislatively, but in my opinion the biggest threat it to free speech. Imagine if this became widespread practice.
Having said all that - on to recent news:
Google's made it no secret that they support having Net Neutrality written into law. Not surprisingly, it's not that they have altruistic intentions in mind, but their business is dependant on not having any Internet Service Providers slow traffic to or from their web pages. Hmmm... think Microsoft wouldn't mind slowing down Google a bit? How about a partnership between Microsoft and Comcast where MSN searches run faster? Don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but this isn't exactly out of the realm of possibility.
Along those lines, I thought this was interesting - Google has announced that they are working on developing a "throttling detection tool". Presumably if users know their speed is being throttled, they'll be outraged with their ISP. I find this an interesting strategy at fighting back, should ISPs aggressively start throttling. I can imagine this working along the lines of multiple network speed tests to different sites. That could work for comparing one particular web site versus another, but at the same time there's a lot of variables on the speed that pages load. Should be interesting.
On a related throttling note...
In January, Time Warner announced it was going to test a tiered pricing for Internet service using a base rates with a cap of a certain number of gigabytes per month. If you go over your cap, then there's additional charges per every 5GB. I can't say I care for this, as if feels a little too much like mobile phone usage and guessing how many minutes you need in advance. In addition, I'll be very curious to see how the minimum tier prices compared to current "unlimited" pricing. My guess is that the lowest tier will be slightly cheaper than current prices, but the gigabyte cap will be too low for the average user. The average user level will be higher priced than you currently pay. This is conjecture at this point and I hope I'm wrong. (But I know I'm right.)
-Tom
Net Neutrality has a lot of definitions, but when I talk about it, I mean the idea of passing data packets without a "gatekeeper" either blocking them or showing any preferential treatment. I think my opinion on the subject would probably become quickly apparent based on what I write. However, just to make sure there's no ambiguity, I'm in favor of it - with a caveat.
The caveat is that I have no problem with throttling of peer to peer sites (P2P) or BitTorrent networks. Yes, I know that there's legitimate uses of each, but we're all adults here. We all know that 99%+ is illegal. Come on - you want to watch The Dark Knight on your PC? You have to accept there's going to be blocking/throttling. Throttling essentially being when an ISP turns down the speed, either across the board or with selective types of packets (again, see P2P).
I don't care if it's Net Neutrality is accomplished through service guarantees or legislatively, but in my opinion the biggest threat it to free speech. Imagine if this became widespread practice.
Having said all that - on to recent news:
Google's made it no secret that they support having Net Neutrality written into law. Not surprisingly, it's not that they have altruistic intentions in mind, but their business is dependant on not having any Internet Service Providers slow traffic to or from their web pages. Hmmm... think Microsoft wouldn't mind slowing down Google a bit? How about a partnership between Microsoft and Comcast where MSN searches run faster? Don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but this isn't exactly out of the realm of possibility.
Along those lines, I thought this was interesting - Google has announced that they are working on developing a "throttling detection tool". Presumably if users know their speed is being throttled, they'll be outraged with their ISP. I find this an interesting strategy at fighting back, should ISPs aggressively start throttling. I can imagine this working along the lines of multiple network speed tests to different sites. That could work for comparing one particular web site versus another, but at the same time there's a lot of variables on the speed that pages load. Should be interesting.
On a related throttling note...
In January, Time Warner announced it was going to test a tiered pricing for Internet service using a base rates with a cap of a certain number of gigabytes per month. If you go over your cap, then there's additional charges per every 5GB. I can't say I care for this, as if feels a little too much like mobile phone usage and guessing how many minutes you need in advance. In addition, I'll be very curious to see how the minimum tier prices compared to current "unlimited" pricing. My guess is that the lowest tier will be slightly cheaper than current prices, but the gigabyte cap will be too low for the average user. The average user level will be higher priced than you currently pay. This is conjecture at this point and I hope I'm wrong. (But I know I'm right.)
-Tom
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