Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 7:25 PM, William Herrin b...@herrin.us wrote: On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 4:28 PM, Steve Gibbard s...@gibbard.org wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-sided_market They don't all have the same fee-splitting systems, and you can find an example to site as precedent for just about any system you could reasonably advocate. An example raised in a talk I heard a few years ago was of scholarly journals that collect money from both their subscribers and their authors. The authors need to be published in order to get tenure, and the readers pay because they want to know what the authors are saying. I received an interesting comment off list to the effect that there's been a rise in journals in which the authors pays while the reader has open (free) access via the web citing this example: http://openwetware.org/wiki/Publication_fees Modern newspapers have gravitated towards a comparable model in which the advertisers bear the cost of the content and the readers have free access via the web. I, for example, read washingtonpost.com most days. In the abstract, the model looks like this: 1. Pick which side of the two sided market you expect to always pay you. For example, the advertisers in the newspapers' case. 2. Offer _fully functional_ free access to the other side of the market, where fully functional is largely defined by that side's nature. For example washingtonpost.com 3. Ask a convenience fee for access which does not impact functionality but is in some way more desirable to one or another segment of the otherwise unpaid side of the market. For example, paying a subscription to have the hardcopy version of the newspaper delivered. The jury is still out on whether this model is economically sustainable. Still, I think it could offer useful insight to folks like Comcast. I think it likely that the recipient side of the market is going to be the always-payer for ISP service on an eyeball network. That means giving the content side basic fully functional access for free and convenience enhancements for a fee. That's why I suggested: Maybe you'll openly peer with all comers but only at 100 mbps in any single location. You'll open as many locations deep in the network as they want, but it's the peer's problem to connect there. Naturally you'll sell a convenience service to backhaul all those connection points to a convenient location for the peers... or they can make their own arrangements but either way they don't get to massively consume your backbone for free. There's probably enough separation there between what you sell customer B and what you sell customer C to eke over to the good side of the ethics line. And by the way an open peering policy with those parameters would make you the Chamber of Commerce's new best friend, enabling small business to vend innovative products directly to your customers (and then pay you for the convenience of aggregation once they build up a customer base). The key pitfall with this model is function versus convenience. Your paid enhancements to the second side of the market can offer greater convenience but you cross the line if they offer greater functionality. Connecting where I want (instead of where you offer) is convenient. Connecting with enough bandwidth for my service to be usable is functional. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: http://bill.herrin.us/ Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Dec 1, 2010, at 5:47 PM, William Herrin wrote: On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Derek J. Balling dr...@megacity.org wrote: On Nov 29, 2010, at 10:25 PM, William Herrin wrote: There are a couple forms of shared billing. There's a third kind you failed to mention that doesn't require equal footing of the parties. The broker. I might pay an apartment broker $X to help find me an apartment. In turn the apartment broker might match me up with an apartment, and charge the landlord $Y for a successful tenancy. Hi Derek, For the most part the apartment broker process doesn't work quite the way you think. Generally he either gets a fee from you to find you the Regardless of whether the apartment broker comparison holds up, there are many examples of what economists call two-sided markets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-sided_market They don't all have the same fee-splitting systems, and you can find an example to site as precedent for just about any system you could reasonably advocate. An example raised in a talk I heard a few years ago was of scholarly journals that collect money from both their subscribers and their authors. The authors need to be published in order to get tenure, and the readers pay because they want to know what the authors are saying. Another example is the Golden Gate Bridge, which was funded in the 1930s by the rural counties north of the bridge (including one ~300 miles north), who wanted connectivity to San Francisco. It's probably reasonable to generalize a bit and say that in the systems not imposed by regulators, the distribution of costs has something to do with how much each party cares, within the limits of each party's resources. Whether the response produced by the market is at all fair is another -- far more subjective -- question, and that's where regulators come in. -Steve
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 4:28 PM, Steve Gibbard s...@gibbard.org wrote: Regardless of whether the apartment broker comparison holds up, there are many examples of what economists call two-sided markets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-sided_market They don't all have the same fee-splitting systems, and you can find an example to site as precedent for just about any system you could reasonably advocate. An example raised in a talk I heard a few years ago was of scholarly journals that collect money from both their subscribers and their authors. The authors need to be published in order to get tenure, and the readers pay because they want to know what the authors are saying. Hi Steve, You've picked a poor example. I had some exposure to that earlier in my career. The rags you're talking about tend to have very poor reputations in academia, and while they do have an official cover price, they have virtually no paid readership. Like unaccredited correspondence classes, they exist primarily to help young and second-tier scientists flesh out their CV's. In fact, if you go through the list in the first paragraph on your referenced Wikipedia article you'll find that most of them have a well defined paying customer on one side and what you might refer to as an entity of importance to the customer on the other. The yellow pages for example - the advertisers are the customer. The recipients are important to the customer (hence important to the publisher) but they are not the customer and they don't pay for the phone book. As an eyeball network, the content providers are certainly entities of importance to your customer. But if the yellow pages is your reference, that's all the more reason the content providers shouldn't have to pay you. That having been said, there are some examples of your two-sided markets that are relevant. Here's three: 1. The newspaper. You pay for a copy. The advertisers pay to put ads in it. 2. The telephone. You pay for a phone. Anyone who wants to call you also pays. 3. The credit card. You pay annual fees, interest charges and late fees. The merchant also pays a transaction fee. So, let's scrutinize these examples for insight into how they could apply to an ISP wanting to bill both Joe Blow and Netflix. 1. The newspaper. Yep, they certainly burn both ends of the candle. And in a -strongly competitive market- they're dying for it in the face of TV news and web sites which don't. But dig a little closer... the majority of their revenue on the recipient side is folks buying the paper for the articles. The ads are merely along for the ride. Indeed, the consumer rarely buys a publication primarily for its paid advertising -- examples exist but are fleeting. The publications which do consist of solely paid advertising tend to arrive in the consumer's mailbox without charge. Lesson: you can bill the content provider if the consumer doesn't care about receiving his content AND is receiving enough content you buy for him that he's willing to keep paying you. Helpful for the ISP situation? Yeah - it says if you can get one side of the market to give you, for free, what the other side is willing to pay for, you're ahead of the game. Don't get greedy! 2. The phone. This has been around the regulatory block a few times, usually to the phone company's detriment. The ILECs were compelled to set an interconnect tariff that allowed all comers with exactly the same terms. So the they said, well, we don't want little competitors cherry picking office buildings so we'll set the tariff as originator-pays per minute. And then ISPs came along with massive receive-only call banks and lo and behold some of the little competitors figured out they could make enough money requiring the telco to pay them minute charges to give the phone lines to the ISPs for free. Lesson: Trying to get money from both ends while a monopoly can be a long and tortuous road to regulatory hell. 3. The credit card. Wait a minute, what do you mean the merchant pays the bank a percentage of each transaction? The merchant doesn't pay the bank anything! The consumer (the customer) pays the bank, the bank keeps part of it and then the bank pays the rest of it to the merchant. And you better keep them both happy -- you face stiff competition from cash. Lesson: In a competitive environment, being the billing agent for the supplier can be a value add. But that doesn't exactly help you when you think you want the supplier to pay you too Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: http://bill.herrin.us/ Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
Sprint also offers unlimited 3G/4G data, and they were *really* specific in a mailing to their customers a couple days ago actually that unlimited means unlimited, not like some of our competitors are doing to their customers. D On Nov 30, 2010, at 11:29 AM, Owen DeLong wrote: MetroPCS also offers unlimited EVDO. Owen On Nov 30, 2010, at 8:22 AM, Brielle Bruns wrote: On 11/30/10 9:07 AM, William Herrin wrote: My Verizon Blackberry plan says unlimited data. Including the tether. Its 5GB, trust me on that one. Former roommate worked for Verizon Wireless as a high level blackberry tech in the local call center - they quietly added the cap to all plans over the past year after adding all these little disclaimers to sales docs, websites, etc. She came home and warned us one day that our EVDO modem on the business account was now capped, even though it was originally 'unlimited'. IIRC, they'll start billing you per megabyte or gigabyte after 5GB. I've not had an oppertunity to test this, so I'm only going by what I was told. IIRC, Clear's 4G service has no monthly cap. It does, 5GB as well, but I believe they throttle you down majorly once you hit the cap. I'll keep my eyes on the fine print next time I see a Clear commercial here. -- Brielle Bruns The Summit Open Source Development Group http://www.sosdg.org/ http://www.ahbl.org
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Nov 29, 2010, at 10:25 PM, William Herrin wrote: There are a couple forms of shared billing. There's a third kind you failed to mention that doesn't require equal footing of the parties. The broker. I might pay an apartment broker $X to help find me an apartment. In turn the apartment broker might match me up with an apartment, and charge the landlord $Y for a successful tenancy. $Y is frequently much higher than $X, because the value to the landlord is much higher than the value to the tenant. There's a lot of similarities to the ISP model here. It's not worth beaucoup cash to the end-user to pay for all the overhead of the bandwidth costs. Their whole benefit is getting to watch a movie. Netflix and L3, on the other hand, stand to make quite a bit of money on the transaction, and could pay the broker-ISP a heftier sum to handle all their transactions with their end-users for them. They do that because it's not cost-effective for them to try and do direct transactions with their end-users, just as it's not often not convenient for land-lords to go around trying to actively find tenants. On Nov 29, 2010, at 11:20 PM, Leo Bicknell wrote: Broadband in the US is not in that boat. Too many consumers have a choice of a single provider. The vast majority of the rest have the choice of two providers. I dunno. I've lived in areas where I had two dozen local providers vying for my last-mile residential connectivity business. Perhaps this is something for you to bring up with your local municipality, tell them to stop strangling the businesses that want to offer service to their residents. But just because your elected officials aren't doing right by you doesn't mean that it justifies telling Comcast that they have to run their network, paid for with their money, according to yours or anyone else's rules. D
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Dec 1, 2010, at 3:38 PM, Derek J. Balling wrote: On Nov 29, 2010, at 11:20 PM, Leo Bicknell wrote: Broadband in the US is not in that boat. Too many consumers have a choice of a single provider. The vast majority of the rest have the choice of two providers. I dunno. I've lived in areas where I had two dozen local providers vying for my last-mile residential connectivity business. Perhaps this is something for you to bring up with your local municipality, tell them to stop strangling the businesses that want to offer service to their residents. I live in an area without two dozen local providers that offer services to my address. Neither T nor CMCSA offer service at my address nor will they even return calls about price quotes to build. The local municipalities were uninterested as well, including putting pressure on the local utilities (T/CMCSA) that have major offices/callcenters located in the township. Ultimately I managed to work something out and get service, but for those on the edge areas, its much harder than you would think to gain access. I suspect there will be ongoing property devaluation as a consequence of lack of these utilities.. - Jared
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Wed, 01 Dec 2010 16:32:47 EST, Jared Mauch said: Ultimately I managed to work something out and get service, but for those on the edge areas, its much harder than you would think to gain access. I suspect there will be ongoing property devaluation as a consequence of lack of these utilities.. Has already started. I was looking for an apartment/house recently, and looked at one place towards the outskirts of town that was rather nicer than the rent price would indicate. The guy admitted the rent had been dropped $150/mo because the location had neither DSL nor cable service. Unfortunately, that was a show-stopper for me as well... pgp2g2KhDHZ72.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Derek J. Balling dr...@megacity.org wrote: On Nov 29, 2010, at 10:25 PM, William Herrin wrote: There are a couple forms of shared billing. There's a third kind you failed to mention that doesn't require equal footing of the parties. The broker. I might pay an apartment broker $X to help find me an apartment. In turn the apartment broker might match me up with an apartment, and charge the landlord $Y for a successful tenancy. Hi Derek, For the most part the apartment broker process doesn't work quite the way you think. Generally he either gets a fee from you to find you the best apartment or a fee from the landlord to find him a tenant (a no fee listing). But not both. Read http://www.nakedapartments.com/blog/broker-fees-explained/. Sometimes the landlord will agree to cover part of the broker's fee but the legal fiction is that the landlord is paying the renter who is paying the broker. Also bear in mind that apartment brokers tend to be a New York City phenomenon where regulated rent stabilization laws and related heavy regulation apply. They exist elsewhere but all top 20 Google hits for apartment broker fees were NYC. Let's consider a related example that's more ubiquitous than New York City apartment brokers: the real estate agent. The seller's agent collects a commission. So does the buyer's agent. If they're the same person, they get both commissions. Right? http://homebuying.about.com/od/glossaryd/g/DualAgency.htm Dual agency is not legal in all 50 states. http://homebuying.about.com/od/realestateagents/qt/92807_DualAgncy.htm Dual agency must be agreed to in writing between [all three] parties. The problem with dual agency is it's a classic conflict of interest. That's why both buyer and seller have to agree to it and go in eyes-wide-open, even where it's legal. What's more, in the highly competitive real estate market, savvy buyers know it's time to apply the screws -- the agent will earn more money even if he takes a big hit on the buyer's commission. Kinda the opposite of the monopoly/duopoly ISP who doesn't seek your permission in dealing with anyone else. Finally, realize that in both cases (real estate agent and apartment broker) you're dealing with a competitive negotiated process. The law allows -many- things in negotiated contracts that are flat illegal in the contracts of adhesion typically offered to the residential Internet buyer. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: http://bill.herrin.us/ Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
It may have something to do with that Level3 is now hosting all the streaming content for Netflixs. Cheers Ryan -Original Message- From: Thomas Donnelly [mailto:tad1...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 5:52 PM To: Rettke, Brian; Patrick W. Gilmore; NANOG list; Guerra, Ruben Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions On November 19, 2010, Comcast informed Level 3 that, for the first time, it will demand a recurring fee from Level 3 to transmit Internet online movies and other content to Comcast's customers who request such content. If the issue is bandwidth, then why not charge for bandwidth? Picking a specific service says we are trying to squash the competition. On Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:48:06 -0600, Guerra, Ruben ruben.gue...@arrisi.com wrote: I'd have to agree with Brian. There is no simple answer to this one... If the ultimate cause is the abuse of bandwidth, I can understand this... BUT if the underlying motive is to squash competition then shame on you! -Original Message- From: Rettke, Brian [mailto:brian.ret...@cableone.biz] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 4:41 PM To: Patrick W. Gilmore; NANOG list Subject: RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to support the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming ventures. I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of the content provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans spewed out regarding Net Neutrality, which has become so misused and abused as a term that I don't think it has any credulous value remaining. I'm hoping that there is an eventual meeting of the minds wherein some sort of collaboration takes place. If this gets additional government regulations I fear no one will like the result. Sincerely, Brian A . Rettke RHCT, CCDP, CCNP, CCIP Network Engineer, CableONE Internet Services -Original Message- From: Patrick W. Gilmore [mailto:patr...@ianai.net] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 3:28 PM To: NANOG list Subject: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statemen t-concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational aspects of the 'Net. Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product which has content as well. I am certain all the content providers on this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for settlement free peering tomorrow. (L3 wouldn't want other providers to claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are competing and L3 is putting up a toll booth on the Internet, would they?) -- TTFN, patrick -- Using Opera's revolutionary email client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
replies inline On 11/30/2010 12:09 AM, Andrew Koch wrote: On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 22:17, William Herrinb...@herrin.us wrote: So you're saying: treat it like electrical service. I have a 200 amp electrical service at my house. But I don't pay for a 200 amp service, I pay for kilowatt-hours of usage. There are several problems transplanting that billing model to Internet service. The first you've already noticed - marketing activity has rendered it unsalable. But that's not the only problem. Not quite. Look at mobile data plans. A very few are unlimited, most are per byte. I don't know of a single data plan that's unlimited. they all have either 5 gig or lower transfer caps. That's not unlimited no matter what the lawyers or marketers day. Andy Koch
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 9:47 AM, William Warren hescomins...@emmanuelcomputerconsulting.com wrote: On 11/30/2010 12:09 AM, Andrew Koch wrote: On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 22:17, William Herrinb...@herrin.us wrote: So you're saying: treat it like electrical service. I have a 200 amp electrical service at my house. But I don't pay for a 200 amp service, I pay for kilowatt-hours of usage. There are several problems transplanting that billing model to Internet service. The first you've already noticed - marketing activity has rendered it unsalable. But that's not the only problem. Not quite. Look at mobile data plans. A very few are unlimited, most are per byte. I don't know of a single data plan that's unlimited. they all have either 5 gig or lower transfer caps. That's not unlimited no matter what the lawyers or marketers day. William, My Verizon Blackberry plan says unlimited data. Including the tether. IIRC, Clear's 4G service has no monthly cap. Regardless, we were talking about residential Internet, not mobile Internet. There's a market expectation that mobile systems cost more than their wireline counterparts and have usage-based billing even if their wireline counterparts don't. Moving the market expectations for wireline Internet in the face of your competitor's ability to move a different way is tough. This, by the way, is where Verizon is going to take some of you to the cleaners. With fiber all the way to the premises and control of the key transit-free who everyone else either peers with or pays, they can jack up their data capacity much more cost effectively than you can. And let's face it, when they tell you that you're upgrading your peering port from 10G to 100G in order to keep it, you will comply rather than lose reciprocal peering. The more you complain, the rosier they'll smell replying that, Oh, we don't see the problem. We just increased our data rates. We only see a need for caution on the highly competitive wireless side which because of competition doesn't need regulation anyway. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: http://bill.herrin.us/ Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On 11/30/10 9:07 AM, William Herrin wrote: My Verizon Blackberry plan says unlimited data. Including the tether. Its 5GB, trust me on that one. Former roommate worked for Verizon Wireless as a high level blackberry tech in the local call center - they quietly added the cap to all plans over the past year after adding all these little disclaimers to sales docs, websites, etc. She came home and warned us one day that our EVDO modem on the business account was now capped, even though it was originally 'unlimited'. IIRC, they'll start billing you per megabyte or gigabyte after 5GB. I've not had an oppertunity to test this, so I'm only going by what I was told. IIRC, Clear's 4G service has no monthly cap. It does, 5GB as well, but I believe they throttle you down majorly once you hit the cap. I'll keep my eyes on the fine print next time I see a Clear commercial here. -- Brielle Bruns The Summit Open Source Development Group http://www.sosdg.org/ http://www.ahbl.org
RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
I just wanted to stop and say I'm glad we can have this kind of debate :) I think we need to start with education at every level. Watching 1-2 movies a day, some additional streaming content, using the VoIP phone whenever, and surfing the web is normal behavior. Running occasional P2P is normal behavior. You'd never leave the water running all day, even though if you rent it probably wouldn't cost you any more (landlord usually pays for water). It's not simply a question of what can I get, it's a question of being a good internet citizen. There will never be a network so robust that everyone in the world could go full throttle all the time at the same time, so we have to share. I myself am against a lot of regulation of the free market. I want to be able to use P2P without it being relegated to scavenger, though I don't use it all the time. I want to watch Hulu or Discovery or Netflix when something is on that I want to see. I've heard of and seen implemented some rather generous leaking token bucket scenarios that keep the average user unaware of any bandwidth restrictions, while causing slower service for those people that use everything at full speed all the time. Since I pay the same (or more) than most of the other shared media users for my service, I think that is a good implementation of fair use. They can still use critical services, VoIP, HTTP, and some video, but they don't get the same kind of full-throttle download anymore. Sincerely, Brian A . Rettke RHCT, CCDP, CCNP, CCIP Network Engineer, CableONE Internet Services
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
MetroPCS also offers unlimited EVDO. Owen On Nov 30, 2010, at 8:22 AM, Brielle Bruns wrote: On 11/30/10 9:07 AM, William Herrin wrote: My Verizon Blackberry plan says unlimited data. Including the tether. Its 5GB, trust me on that one. Former roommate worked for Verizon Wireless as a high level blackberry tech in the local call center - they quietly added the cap to all plans over the past year after adding all these little disclaimers to sales docs, websites, etc. She came home and warned us one day that our EVDO modem on the business account was now capped, even though it was originally 'unlimited'. IIRC, they'll start billing you per megabyte or gigabyte after 5GB. I've not had an oppertunity to test this, so I'm only going by what I was told. IIRC, Clear's 4G service has no monthly cap. It does, 5GB as well, but I believe they throttle you down majorly once you hit the cap. I'll keep my eyes on the fine print next time I see a Clear commercial here. -- Brielle Bruns The Summit Open Source Development Group http://www.sosdg.org/ http://www.ahbl.org
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On 11/30/2010 10:23 AM, Rettke, Brian wrote: I think we need to start with education at every level. Watching 1-2 movies a day, some additional streaming content, using the VoIP phone whenever, and surfing the web is normal behavior. Running occasional P2P is normal behavior. What are you using to determine normal? Here's the deal. The more bandwidth the average household has, the more the bandwidth content providers will push. When we were mostly dialup, heavy flash/video/content was a rarity. Now that people have much higher speeds, making dialup friendly pages is a rarity. You'd never leave the water running all day, even though if you rent it probably wouldn't cost you any more (landlord usually pays for water). It's not simply a question of what can I get, it's a question of being a good internet citizen. There will never be a network so robust that everyone in the world could go full throttle all the time at the same time, so we have to share. While I agree with the sentiment, my household is way over your so-called normal. My son falls asleep with a video stream running (no different than falling asleep with tv going, except his favorite stream never stops streaming). My wife usually falls asleep with the wii streaming something on netflix (which does stop streaming eventually). During an average day, my son, wife, mother-in-law, and myself probably watch a combined total of 12 hours of video streaming (not uncommon for 3 streams to run simultaneously to 1 computer and 2 tv's and many are auto detecting and bumping to HD with higher bandwidth usage as content providers improve their offerings). Then there's the MMO's, the iso downloads, the video conferencing to relatives all over the world. We aren't abusive users. We don't leave p2p seeding applications 24/7/365. We usually try not to leave streams running when we aren't there (though like any television, sometimes it does get left on). Jack (Internet TV only for 2 years now)
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Nov 30, 2010, at 11:47 AM, George Bonser wrote: Seriously this has nothing to do with L3 but more with Netflix...it's clear that the Netflix business model is eating into Comcast VoD business and so they are strong arming other providers to affect Netflix's business model. But as others have stated what would happen if Comcast starts coming after every service provider's hosting services that Comcast doesn't like? Bret I think it has more to do with this: http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_16526623?source =rss The cable companies are losing subs at an increasing rate. People are using them for internet and not buying the television programming. If Comcast can't collect from their cord-cutting customers, then they will collect from the content providers whose products their customers are using. I have been told that cutting the cord are the 3 most frightening words in the cable industry today. IMO, they need to see that they are service providers, not gate-keepers. I am afraid that the Level-3 response here may help them to cling on to the legacy business model and avoid facing the new situation before them. Regards Marshall
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
I used to have an unlimited EVDO service from Sprint, when they changed to 5GB I called to complain and was advised that my plan was grandfathered, my new limit 5GB but with $0/GB overage. Jeff On Nov 30, 2010 11:24 AM, Brielle Bruns br...@2mbit.com wrote: On 11/30/10 9:07 AM, William Herrin wrote: My Verizon Blackberry plan says unlimited data. Inclu... Its 5GB, trust me on that one. Former roommate worked for Verizon Wireless as a high level blackberry tech in the local call center - they quietly added the cap to all plans over the past year after adding all these little disclaimers to sales docs, websites, etc. She came home and warned us one day that our EVDO modem on the business account was now capped, even though it was originally 'unlimited'. IIRC, they'll start billing you per megabyte or gigabyte after 5GB. I've not had an oppertunity to test this, so I'm only going by what I was told. IIRC, Clear's 4G service has no monthly cap. It does, 5GB as well, but I believe they throttle you down majorly once you hit the cap. I'll keep my eyes on the fine print next time I see a Clear commercial here. -- Brielle Bruns The Summit Open Source Development Group http://www.sosdg.org/ http://www.ahbl.org
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 11:22 AM, Brielle Bruns br...@2mbit.com wrote: On 11/30/10 9:07 AM, William Herrin wrote: My Verizon Blackberry plan says unlimited data. Including the tether. Its 5GB, trust me on that one. I checked it out when I updated my credit card number online recently. The billing page has a place to describe a cap and overage charges. It's listed as unlimited. Not saying you're wrong. Just saying that the billing documentation disagrees. -Bill -- William D. Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: http://bill.herrin.us/ Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
Re: wireless data caps [was: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions]
-- Original Message --- From: William Herrin b...@herrin.us Sent: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 13:17:45 -0500 I checked it out when I updated my credit card number online recently. The billing page has a place to describe a cap and overage charges. It's listed as unlimited. Not saying you're wrong. Just saying that the billing documentation disagrees. It's 'unlimited' up to 5Gb -- big lawyers make that work I guess. And yes I've also been grandfathered in from almost 8 years ago when I first got it -- for these types of accounts they shut you off instead of billing overusage. -Randy
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 10:34 PM, Owen DeLong o...@delong.com wrote: On Nov 29, 2010, at 9:09 PM, Andrew Koch wrote: On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 22:17, William Herrin b...@herrin.us wrote: So you're saying: treat it like electrical service. I have a 200 amp electrical service at my house. But I don't pay for a 200 amp service, I pay for kilowatt-hours of usage. There are several problems transplanting that billing model to Internet service. The first you've already noticed - marketing activity has rendered it unsalable. But that's not the only problem. Not quite. Look at mobile data plans. A very few are unlimited, most are per byte. And I am on Sprint because they are one of the few. Another problem is that the price of electricity has been very stable for a very long time, as has the general character of devices which consume it. Consumers have a gut understanding of the cost of leaving the light on. But what is a byte? How much to load that web page? Watch that movie? And doesn't Moore's Law mean that 18 months from now it should cost half as much? If I can't tell whether or not I'm being ripped off, I'm probably being ripped off. Yep, sure seems that way when I get my mobile bill with roaming data charges. Consumers learn what it costs per byte, apps are created for them to manage their download amounts. Carriers send messages alerting consumers of their usage. I simply avoid using roaming services. Frankly, my carrier could double their revenue from me and significantly increase their profits if they would offer me a global unlimited data/voice plan for twice what I currently pay for domestic. (If any of you cellular companies are listening, that's right, I'd be willing to pay ~$250/month for global unlimited voice/data and my usage would not increase very much above what you're already providing). I also happen to know that I'm not the only consumer that would very much like to be able to purchase this kind of service. An alternative to N number of SIM cards or paying high roaming fees is WiFi calling from cellular using UMA or GAN technologies. I used the T-Mobile USA Blackberry Curve to call Philly from a free WiFi access point at a Shanghai coffee shop, worked fine. Skype probably works too. Yes, it only works while on WiFi, but when you are attached via wifi it is like being attached via the home network from a billing perspective. While on WiFi, voice, txt, and web all work. For me, it is a reasonable compromise when compared to roaming fees. Shameless plug http://tinyurl.com/2vqzcrv And, for the IPv6 enthusiast, the Nokia E73 does both GAN (wifi calling) and IPv6 on T-Mobile's 3G network (but not together... beta...) Cameron (not an unbiased source of information on america's largest 4G network) Owen
RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
Wonder if comcast will try that with google's tv service; would like to see them explain to their users why they can't get to google. Level 3's unfortunately a much easier target. -Original Message- From: Mark Wall [mailto:ospfisi...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 5:47 PM To: Patrick W. Gilmore Cc: NANOG list Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions Between the lines: Comcast wants to end mutual peering agreements (due to: ratios, politics , greed) but we are going to spin it due to net neutrality making it main stream media and hoping we can get comcast clients to complain... Not the worse angle we've seen
RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
From: Rettke, Brian Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 2:41 PM To: Patrick W. Gilmore; NANOG list Subject: RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to support the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming ventures. From a cultural standpoint, we in the US are used to a model where the sender pays the postage for unsolicited content and the requestor pays the shipping for requested content. So asking an ad network to pay Comcast for shipping their ads is valid but in a request where the end user specifically asked for a movie, the user should be expected to pay for that. What Comcast appears to be doing is subsidizing flat rate customer rates by charging the providers metered access (assuming the fee charged the provider isn't also a flat rate). If so, that really isn't fair because: 1. The provider has no control over the size of or number of requests that are made. The provider is essentially agreeing to an unknown quantity in advance. 2. There is no way to ensure that a request is legitimate and not a request generated simply to generate revenue (sort of like click fraud ... stream fraud). 3. It opens the provider up to a denial of sustainability attack where a bot net requests many copies of various streams, sends them to the equivalent of /dev/null and the provider is presented with a huge bill. 4. The only way a provider could mitigate increases in fees is to meter access causing a sub-optimal user experience. Shouldn't Level3 turn around and charge Comcast for distributing NBC/Universal content? The whole thing is like a movie theater charging the studios to show movies while selling tickets to the public to watch them. Actualy, it is like Universal opening their own movie theaters and charging competing studios to show their movies while still charging the public to see them. Comcast is simply imposing a tariff on competing content. If I were level3, I would have denied the request. Customers on Comcast would then discover they have sub-optimal Internet service and gone to a competitor (ATT Uverse or Verizon FIOS, for example). As owner of NBC Universal, Comcast is a producer as well as a distributor of content. That puts them in direct competition with other producers regardless of the distributor. Level3 should deny the request and Comcast users will have Internet access instead of Internet access. Comcast doesn't have the captive audience they once had in many places and when customers discover their choices are limited when they choose Comcast, they will go elsewhere. I hope Level3's acquiescence is temporary or the FTC puts a stop to it. It is sort of like FedEx owning the freeway and charging UPS to use it.
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Nov 29, 2010, at 3:42 PM, George Bonser wrote: From: Rettke, Brian Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 2:41 PM To: Patrick W. Gilmore; NANOG list Subject: RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to support the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming ventures. From a cultural standpoint, we in the US are used to a model where the sender pays the postage for unsolicited content and the requestor pays the shipping for requested content. So asking an ad network to pay Comcast for shipping their ads is valid but in a request where the end user specifically asked for a movie, the user should be expected to pay for that. What Comcast appears to be doing is subsidizing flat rate customer rates by charging the providers metered access (assuming the fee charged the provider isn't also a flat rate). If so, that really isn't fair because: On the internet, how would you tell these apart? First, as I have said in a previous message, I think Comcast's actions here are deplorable. However... Generally speaking, most (legitimate) ads are delivered as content on web pages at various sites. As a result, they are requested specifically by the user's browser right alongside all the other content the end user actually asked for. Perhaps part of the problem here is that Comcast comes from a culture where advertisers pay to deliver their advertising which is delivered directly alongside the content that the consumer actually wants. Perhaps Comcast is having a hard time realizing that the internet is not broadcast television, or, perhaps they think they can convert the rest of us to thinking of the internet along those lines. Certainly the ad-delivery method on the web is actually more in line with that of broadcast television than it is in line with postal delivery of advertising. 1. The provider has no control over the size of or number of requests that are made. The provider is essentially agreeing to an unknown quantity in advance. 2. There is no way to ensure that a request is legitimate and not a request generated simply to generate revenue (sort of like click fraud ... stream fraud). 3. It opens the provider up to a denial of sustainability attack where a bot net requests many copies of various streams, sends them to the equivalent of /dev/null and the provider is presented with a huge bill. 4. The only way a provider could mitigate increases in fees is to meter access causing a sub-optimal user experience. All valid points. In fact, this points out that while the approach Comcast is taking appears to resemble the sponsor pays model of broadcast television, the metered aspect is a major difference which changes the game significantly. I suspect that Comcast is operating from the assumption that every request for content to the provider is money flowing to the provider so that the money collected by Comcast for the corresponding traffic is merely their cut of the revenue. Of course we all know this is a flawed assumption on Comcast's part, but, if you look at it from that mind set the belief can be rationalized, even if it is misguided. Shouldn't Level3 turn around and charge Comcast for distributing NBC/Universal content? Seems like a reasonable response, but, hopefully Level 3 will not surrender the high ground since they have it for the moment. The whole thing is like a movie theater charging the studios to show movies while selling tickets to the public to watch them. Actualy, it is like Universal opening their own movie theaters and charging competing studios to show their movies while still charging the public to see them. Comcast is simply imposing a tariff on competing content. If I were level3, I would have denied the request. Customers on Comcast would then discover they have sub-optimal Internet service and gone to a competitor (ATT Uverse or Verizon FIOS, for example). That's great in areas where that is an option. There are many areas served by Comcast where Uverse, FIOS, etc. are not available. I live in San Jose, California, the so called Capitol of Silicon Valley. In my neighborhood, Comcast is the only cost effective alternative for more than 1.5mbps/384kbps. (A residential DS-3 circuit is not cost effective). As owner of NBC Universal, Comcast is a producer as well as a distributor of content. That puts them in direct competition with other producers regardless of the distributor. Level3 should deny the request and Comcast users will have Internet access instead of Internet access. Comcast doesn't have the captive audience they once had in many places and when customers discover their choices are limited when they choose Comcast, they will go elsewhere. I hope Level3's acquiescence is temporary or the FTC puts a stop to it. It is sort of like FedEx owning the freeway and charging UPS to use
RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
Hi,
This is nothing to do with technology, it never is, it is about cap-ex, money,
sales, market share, dominance, internal products, hurting the competition.
While I have delusions about technical people putting agenda aside to work in a
co-ordinate fashion on IPv6 I have no such delusions the second a commercial
interest enters the fray.
Cogent made Level3 bend over years ago, it will be interesting to see if
Comcast can do the same or if Level3 will grow a pair and refuse to be bullied
despite the commercial loss.
Ben
-Original Message-
From: Seth Mattinen [mailto:se...@rollernet.us]
Sent: 30 November 2010 01:47
To: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On 11/29/10 3:59 PM, Leo Bicknell wrote:
But this isn't a technology problem, or a ratio problem.
Comcast's blog specifically mentions unbalanced ratios as an issue.
~Seth
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Ben Butler
Director Tel: 0333 666 3332
Fax: 0333 666 3331
C2 Business Networking Ltd
The Paddock, London Road, Nantwich, Cheshire, CW5 7JL
http://www.c2internet.net/
Part of the Atlas Business Group of Companies plc
Registered in England: 07102986 Registered Address: Datum House, Electra Way,
Crewe CW1 6ZF Vat Registration No: 712 9503 48
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RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
And what happens when the content providers have multicast to the BGP edge and
the access provider has to carry it from there on in their network.
This is solely about money and the brokenness of the current ISP / access /
carrier / content provider commercial model. This has been coming for years
once access speed (long since) got upto a sufficient speed to sustain 1 to 2
Mbit and they sorted out their copyright issues on the content.
Now all the access providers who spoke big in marketing and delivered little in
service are being exposed and trying to fudge the issue. This has been coming
for at least five years with video, and the next one is SIP with call revenues.
Show me the money!
-Original Message-
From: Steven Fischer [mailto:sfischer1...@gmail.com]
Sent: 30 November 2010 02:03
To: Marshall Eubanks
Cc: NANOG list
Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
Trying to follow this - so, if I have followed it correctly, L3 hosts
high-bandwitdh services (namely NetFlix) to which an abundance of Comcast
users subscribe? And Comcast is crying foul, and claiming a portion of L3's
revenue is rightfully theirs, for being last mile to a significant portion
of the CDN/NetFlix customer base? Does L3 even service a home user market,
in the same vein as Comcast or Verizon?
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 8:55 PM, Marshall Eubanks t...@americafree.tvwrote:
On Nov 29, 2010, at 6:24 PM, Phil Bedard wrote:
Is L3 hosting content for Netflix?
You bet.
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/11/11/level-3-signs-deal-to-be-a-primary-netflix-cdn-shares-rally/
* NOVEMBER 11, 2010, 9:13 AM ET
Level 3 Signs Deal To Be A Primary Netflix CDN; Shares Rally
Regards
Marshall
Netflix has become a large source of
traffic going to end users. L3 likely could have held out on this one if
the content they were hosting is valuable enough to Comcast's customers,
but maybe what Comcast was asking for wasn't much in the grand scheme of
things.
Obviously someone has to pay for the access infrastructure and Comcast
would much rather get the content provider to pay for it versus passing
it
along to their customers. I think they probably just took a stab and L3
complied.
Phil
On 11/29/10 5:28 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore patr...@ianai.net wrote:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement-
concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp
I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects
operational aspects of the 'Net.
Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay
to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product
which has content as well. I am certain all the content providers on
this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying
for
settlement free peering tomorrow. (L3 wouldn't want other providers to
claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are
competing and L3 is putting up a toll booth on the Internet, would
they?)
--
TTFN,
patrick
--
To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his
glorious presence without fault and with great joy
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Ben Butler
Director Tel: 0333 666 3332
Fax: 0333 666 3331
C2 Business Networking Ltd
The Paddock, London Road, Nantwich, Cheshire, CW5 7JL
http://www.c2internet.net/
Part of the Atlas Business Group of Companies plc
Registered in England: 07102986 Registered Address: Datum House, Electra Way,
Crewe CW1 6ZF Vat Registration No: 712 9503 48
This message is confidential and intended for the use only of the person to
whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient you are strictly
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RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
Hi,
Agreed if they are cost recovering in full for end to end delivery of the
packet. But I suspect that market forces haven driven things to a point where
there business models depend on peering ratios and SFI. It is not double
billing, it is shared billing. The simple fact is that consumers do not pay
enough and are unwilling to pay enough for their access circuit. This cost
disparity between access, packet delivery and content / advertising /
subscription revenues is highlighted in high bandwidth services that break the
cost averaging utilization model.
I know the content providers hate this, I know the consumers will not pay more
for their access, but the money pie is a certain size and the costs need to be
born by all parties for end to end service delivery. Sorry content providers,
you need to suck it up and come up with a more compelling commercial offer, or,
if you already have one you need to start spreading the love.
Sorry but this is a shared problem that needs to be collectively and
collaboratively addressed rather than the normal ill informed commercial
winning that I hear repeatedly about how it all not fair.
-Original Message-
From: William Herrin [mailto:b...@herrin.us]
Sent: 30 November 2010 02:19
To: Patrick W. Gilmore
Cc: NANOG list
Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 5:28 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore patr...@ianai.net wrote:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement-concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp
I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational
aspects of the 'Net.
Patrick,
The way I explain it to folks is this:
It's a question of double-dipping. If company A has a customer B who
pays A for a particular service, company C should not be able to pay
company A to meaningfully change the character of B's service. Such a
pay-to-play interference in A's contract with B is unfair to customer
B at a very fundamental level.
Now, you guys have to get paid. There is no acceptable end result
where C comes along, busts your oversubscription model and blows you a
raspberry. But you can't do it by double-billing the service. That's
usually unethical and in many forms of commerce it's illegal too. IMO,
Comcast is cruising for a bruising here.
So try something else.
Maybe you'll openly peer with all comers but only at 100 mbps in any
single location. You'll open as many locations deep in the network as
they want, but it's the peer's problem to connect there. Naturally
you'll sell a convenience service to backhaul all those connection
points to a convenient location for the peers... or they can make
their own arrangements but either way they don't get to massively
consume your backbone for free. There's probably enough separation
there between what you sell customer B and what you sell customer C to
eke over to the good side of the ethics line. And by the way an open
peering policy with those parameters would make you the Chamber of
Commerce's new best friend, enabling small business to vend innovative
products directly to your customers (and then pay you for the
convenience of aggregation once they build up a customer base).
Or maybe you'll just enforce the oversubscription ratio. X bandwidth
for the light users. The same X bandwidth for the heavy users. If
you're in the top 2% you're grouped with the heavy users. But oh by
the way you can buy the Video package for $10 more and we'll put you
in group Y instead where you have a clear shot at Netflix that
consumes a different channel. If the remainder of your usage is
outside the top 2% you can go back to the light users group. Netflix
can't pay us for that; it would interfere with our contract with you.
But you can pay us.
I don't know the final answer here, but it isn't some kind of
ethically-challenged double-dipping the till.
Regards,
Bill Herrin
P.S. I'll see your off-topic politics and raise you an ethics lecture.
--
William D. Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: http://bill.herrin.us/
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
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Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 9:29 PM, Ben Butler ben.but...@c2internet.net wrote: It is not double billing, it is shared billing. Hi Ben, Nice try, but no. There are a couple forms of shared billing. The one you're probably talking about is The Dance. Everybody pays to get in to the dance. The organizer provides a ballroom and a DJ. And then you dance with whoever else pays. One key criteria for The Dance is that all participants are on an equal footing. If the DJ never gets around to playing my song because someone else gave him a list and a fifty then I've been ripped off. Netflix and John Residential Doe are not on equal footing. Netflix will always be the controlling voice in that partnership. Hence Dance-style shared billing is inappropriate -- from John's perspective he should have to pay Netflix or you but not both. Another form of shared billing is when two parties pool resources to deal with a third. For example, you and your insurance company at the pharmacy. Or my neighbor and I buying a jointly-owned snow-blower. I don't think that's the kind of shared billing you meant. Roommates appears to be shared billing but it isn't. In one version, a particular roommate is responsible for the entire rent whether the others cough up their share or not. That's called subletting. In another, all roommates are responsible for the entire rent regardless of whether the others do what they're supposed to. Never sign the latter rent contract. Just don't. When it goes bad you get royally screwed. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: http://bill.herrin.us/ Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
In the Uk, we used to have 2MB DSL, and business providers like myself would
happily provide it on the basis of CBR 2Mbit and we did'nt care what you did
with it. 2Mbit is more than enough for streaming and I challenge anyone
otherwise.
Then consumer broadband came along, the subs went down, the headline speeds
went up, service delivery becomes impossible in the face of the marketing BS
and here we are.
If the subs pay £30 to £45 rather than £10 to £15 then this entire issue
disappears. I don't give a frig what my hosted clients do or my access clients
do, they can run at line rate, I want then to get every paid for bit in the
best fashion it can be delivered. The problem is the access industry has
allowed their sales and marketing people to put them in a point of no return.
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Ben Butler
Director Tel: 0333 666 3332
Fax: 0333 666 3331
C2 Business Networking Ltd
The Paddock, London Road, Nantwich, Cheshire, CW5 7JL
http://www.c2internet.net/
Part of the Atlas Business Group of Companies plc
Registered in England: 07102986 Registered Address: Datum House, Electra Way,
Crewe CW1 6ZF Vat Registration No: 712 9503 48
This message is confidential and intended for the use only of the person to
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prohibited from reading, disseminating, copying, printing, re-transmitting or
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are in the office.Calls to and from any of the Atlas Business Group of
Companies may be recorded for the purposes of training, monitoring of quality
and customer services.
RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
It would be bad form, IMO, for the state to come back to Mc'D's and say hey...you guys are doing a thriving business here...we want a bigger cut, and if we don't get it, we'll barracade the exits and you'll do NO business in these shops you've stood up. Furthermore, we don't care if our customers (drivers on the highway) have bought the McD's meal plan for their frequent trips up and down the road...they can't do business here. But it is worse than that. It is as if the Connecticut transportation authority opened their own burger joints and *then* threatened to block the exits if McDonald's doesn't pay up. I am a great fan of markets and I am sure economics will route around the damage in this case, but it will take a while. I hope Comcast comes up with a better answer in the long run.
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Nov 29, 2010, at 10:51 PM, Ben Butler wrote: In the Uk, we used to have 2MB DSL, and business providers like myself would happily provide it on the basis of CBR 2Mbit and we did'nt care what you did with it. 2Mbit is more than enough for streaming and I challenge anyone otherwise. I say otherwise. So do many customers who want 720 or 1080 lines on their TV. So do many content providers who want to satisfy their customers. But it is your network, your rules. If your customers do not want HD quality, and are happy with 1.5 Mbps streams per DSL line, that's between you your customers. Of course, if your customers want more, that's between your customers and your competitors -- TTFN, patrick
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 10:51 PM, Ben Butler ben.but...@c2internet.net wrote: Then consumer broadband came along, the subs went down, the headline speeds went up, service delivery becomes impossible in the face of the marketing BS and here we are. Hi Ben, So you're saying: treat it like electrical service. I have a 200 amp electrical service at my house. But I don't pay for a 200 amp service, I pay for kilowatt-hours of usage. There are several problems transplanting that billing model to Internet service. The first you've already noticed - marketing activity has rendered it unsalable. But that's not the only problem. Another problem is that the price of electricity has been very stable for a very long time, as has the general character of devices which consume it. Consumers have a gut understanding of the cost of leaving the light on. But what is a byte? How much to load that web page? Watch that movie? And doesn't Moore's Law mean that 18 months from now it should cost half as much? If I can't tell whether or not I'm being ripped off, I'm probably being ripped off. A third problem is the whole regulated monopoly thing. The electric company had to be slapped down hard by the government to make its billing process fair. Anything we can do to avoid that fate is money in the bank, even if it means allowing the occasional customer to get more than he paid for. So if we can't bill you by usage, and at a consumer level we can't, then we have to find another way. Statistics and prayer isn't working out as well as we'd hoped so we're looking at double-billing schemes. Bad plan! Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: http://bill.herrin.us/ Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
Same hymn sheet, if they pay enough the cost averaging model works again and we
don't have to worry about latency critical or transfer volume. The problem is
that they wont pay for it.
-Original Message-
From: wher...@gmail.com [mailto:wher...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of William Herrin
Sent: 30 November 2010 04:17
To: Ben Butler
Cc: NANOG list
Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 10:51 PM, Ben Butler ben.but...@c2internet.net wrote:
Then consumer broadband came along, the subs went
down, the headline speeds went up, service delivery
becomes impossible in the face of the marketing BS
and here we are.
Hi Ben,
So you're saying: treat it like electrical service. I have a 200 amp
electrical service at my house. But I don't pay for a 200 amp service,
I pay for kilowatt-hours of usage.
There are several problems transplanting that billing model to
Internet service. The first you've already noticed - marketing
activity has rendered it unsalable. But that's not the only problem.
Another problem is that the price of electricity has been very stable
for a very long time, as has the general character of devices which
consume it. Consumers have a gut understanding of the cost of leaving
the light on. But what is a byte? How much to load that web page?
Watch that movie? And doesn't Moore's Law mean that 18 months from now
it should cost half as much? If I can't tell whether or not I'm being
ripped off, I'm probably being ripped off.
A third problem is the whole regulated monopoly thing. The electric
company had to be slapped down hard by the government to make its
billing process fair. Anything we can do to avoid that fate is money
in the bank, even if it means allowing the occasional customer to get
more than he paid for.
So if we can't bill you by usage, and at a consumer level we can't,
then we have to find another way. Statistics and prayer isn't working
out as well as we'd hoped so we're looking at double-billing schemes.
Bad plan!
Regards,
Bill Herrin
--
William D. Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: http://bill.herrin.us/
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
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Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Nov 29, 2010, at 11:17 PM, William Herrin wrote: And doesn't Moore's Law mean that 18 months from now it should cost half as much? Maybe for the parts that are electrical, but for the parts that are optical, they may have a longer span. Also, not everyone swaps out those electrical parts every 18 months, business life-cycles typically dictate years. You don't replace your car stereo every 18 months (or maybe YOU do, but we're talking about the average consumer)... The issue here is cost of infrastructure. The last mile generally is more valuable than the long-distance part. Everyone can build a nationwide network for a nominal amount of money. All the carriers can provide circuits at the same IXPs where you can public/private peer. The question does become, who is in those smaller and mid-markets. Not everyone is going to build fiber in Akron, Eugene, nor Madison. It gets even more interesting if you look at what happened with Fairpoint in the northeast IMHO. Verizon realized they would not make money there and sold it off. The promises and costs consumed them and forced bankruptcy. I'm not saying that will happen to Comcast, but it may cause them to divest the unprofitable parts as well, leaving some parts of the country worse-off than we would be today. - Jared (these are my personal opinions, and not those of any employers current, past nor future)
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 22:17, William Herrin b...@herrin.us wrote: So you're saying: treat it like electrical service. I have a 200 amp electrical service at my house. But I don't pay for a 200 amp service, I pay for kilowatt-hours of usage. There are several problems transplanting that billing model to Internet service. The first you've already noticed - marketing activity has rendered it unsalable. But that's not the only problem. Not quite. Look at mobile data plans. A very few are unlimited, most are per byte. Another problem is that the price of electricity has been very stable for a very long time, as has the general character of devices which consume it. Consumers have a gut understanding of the cost of leaving the light on. But what is a byte? How much to load that web page? Watch that movie? And doesn't Moore's Law mean that 18 months from now it should cost half as much? If I can't tell whether or not I'm being ripped off, I'm probably being ripped off. Yep, sure seems that way when I get my mobile bill with roaming data charges. Consumers learn what it costs per byte, apps are created for them to manage their download amounts. Carriers send messages alerting consumers of their usage. A third problem is the whole regulated monopoly thing. The electric company had to be slapped down hard by the government to make its billing process fair. Anything we can do to avoid that fate is money in the bank, even if it means allowing the occasional customer to get more than he paid for. So if we can't bill you by usage, and at a consumer level we can't, then we have to find another way. Statistics and prayer isn't working out as well as we'd hoped so we're looking at double-billing schemes. Bad plan! If double billing is such a bad plan, what are your proposed alternatives? Andy Koch
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On 11/29/10 7:51 PM, Ben Butler wrote: In the Uk, we used to have 2MB DSL, and business providers like myself would happily provide it on the basis of CBR 2Mbit and we did'nt care what you did with it. 2Mbit is more than enough for streaming and I challenge anyone otherwise. While this whole discussion was going on, I took a break to watch Tears of the Sun on Netflix streaming via my Roku. The utilization looked like this: http://ninjamonkey.us/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/netflixonroku.png ~Seth
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Nov 29, 2010, at 8:04 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote: On Nov 29, 2010, at 10:51 PM, Ben Butler wrote: In the Uk, we used to have 2MB DSL, and business providers like myself would happily provide it on the basis of CBR 2Mbit and we did'nt care what you did with it. 2Mbit is more than enough for streaming and I challenge anyone otherwise. I say otherwise. So do many customers who want 720 or 1080 lines on their TV. You can stream 1080p/5.1 128khz over 2mbps at high quality using codecs that were available 2 years ago. (VP6, VP7 can do this, for example). However, yes, 2mbps is at the low end of acceptable today since many households want more than one 1080p stream at a time. Owen
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Nov 29, 2010, at 9:09 PM, Andrew Koch wrote: On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 22:17, William Herrin b...@herrin.us wrote: So you're saying: treat it like electrical service. I have a 200 amp electrical service at my house. But I don't pay for a 200 amp service, I pay for kilowatt-hours of usage. There are several problems transplanting that billing model to Internet service. The first you've already noticed - marketing activity has rendered it unsalable. But that's not the only problem. Not quite. Look at mobile data plans. A very few are unlimited, most are per byte. And I am on Sprint because they are one of the few. Another problem is that the price of electricity has been very stable for a very long time, as has the general character of devices which consume it. Consumers have a gut understanding of the cost of leaving the light on. But what is a byte? How much to load that web page? Watch that movie? And doesn't Moore's Law mean that 18 months from now it should cost half as much? If I can't tell whether or not I'm being ripped off, I'm probably being ripped off. Yep, sure seems that way when I get my mobile bill with roaming data charges. Consumers learn what it costs per byte, apps are created for them to manage their download amounts. Carriers send messages alerting consumers of their usage. I simply avoid using roaming services. Frankly, my carrier could double their revenue from me and significantly increase their profits if they would offer me a global unlimited data/voice plan for twice what I currently pay for domestic. (If any of you cellular companies are listening, that's right, I'd be willing to pay ~$250/month for global unlimited voice/data and my usage would not increase very much above what you're already providing). I also happen to know that I'm not the only consumer that would very much like to be able to purchase this kind of service. Owen
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Mon, 29 Nov 2010, Owen DeLong wrote: pay for domestic. (If any of you cellular companies are listening, that's right, I'd be willing to pay ~$250/month for global unlimited voice/data and my usage would not increase very much above what you're already providing). I also happen to know that I'm not the only consumer that would very much like to be able to purchase this kind of service. Considering there are mobile roaming partners that charge USD10-15 per megabyte, unfortunately that proposition is really hard to do in todays global market. The EU has regulated roaming prices within the EU because this just didn't work right in the free market: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/roaming/regulation/index_en.htm It's still way too high, but the global roaming market is interesting and I'm sure european mobile operators will still charge carriers outside of the EU a lot more than this because of the good old because we can and most do. So your action to not use roaming is the best way to handle it, personally I get local SIM card in the country I go to and have two phones when I'm travelling. It's the only sensible way to handle the current situation. -- Mikael Abrahamssonemail: swm...@swm.pp.se
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 1:52 AM, Mikael Abrahamsson swm...@swm.pp.se wrote: Considering there are mobile roaming partners that charge USD10-15 per megabyte, unfortunately that proposition is really hard to do in todays global market. but really, the 'cost' here is the same as a local wireless user for air-time traffic, then 1$/mbps to ship the bits off their network across the internet, right? So... same cost regardless of 'roaming' or 'local user', at the bit level, right? Perhaps some charge to do the LNP (or equivalent to find/locate the handset in the world) lookup but that can't be 10-15$/mb equivalent is it? -Chris
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 12:09 AM, Andrew Koch andrew.k...@gawul.net wrote: On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 22:17, William Herrin b...@herrin.us wrote: So if we can't bill you by usage, and at a consumer level we can't, then we have to find another way. Statistics and prayer isn't working out as well as we'd hoped so we're looking at double-billing schemes. Bad plan! If double billing is such a bad plan, what are your proposed alternatives? Hi Andrew, Back in the dialup days the solution was a single word: attended. The $100 account was 24/7 and the $20 account was unlimited attended dialup. First month you got a warning so we could be sure you understood that 24/7 was a different account. Second month was upgrade or goodbye. -Bill -- William D. Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: http://bill.herrin.us/ Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions
On Tue, 30 Nov 2010, Christopher Morrow wrote: On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 1:52 AM, Mikael Abrahamsson swm...@swm.pp.se wrote: Considering there are mobile roaming partners that charge USD10-15 per megabyte, unfortunately that proposition is really hard to do in todays global market. but really, the 'cost' here is the same as a local wireless user for air-time traffic, then 1$/mbps to ship the bits off their network across the internet, right? Unfortunately the cost and the price has a very low correlation in this market. The same carriers who charge USD10 per megabyte for roaming might charge 0.1USD per megabyte to some of their own end users. -- Mikael Abrahamssonemail: swm...@swm.pp.se
