Future Of The Internet Highway: Toll Booths Or More Lanes?

[Capt_Picard 0]

Future Of The Internet Highway: Toll Booths Or More Lanes?

 

February 26, 2006

 

By KOMO Staff & News Services

 

SEATTLE - On the Internet, the traffic cops are blind - they don't look at the data they're directing, and they don't give preferential treatment.

 

That's something operators of the Internet highway, the major U.S. phone companies, want to change by effectively adding a toll lane: They want to be able to give priority treatment to those who pay to get through faster.

 

Naturally, consumer advocates and the Web companies that would be paying the toll are calling it highway robbery.

 

"Allowing broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success," Vinton Cerf told a Senate committee recently. Cerf, who played a key role in building the Internet, is now the "Chief Internet Evangelist" at Google Inc.

 

On the Internet, information is carried in "packets," small chunks of data. An e-mail might be divided into several packets and travel different routes to the destination, much like cars have multiple ways of getting somewhere. The packets may arrive out of order, a few even late, but data can be reassembled to reconstitute the e-mail.

 

This design grew out of the military's desire for a network that was both simple and reliable. And as the Internet became more widely available, this equal treatment of traffic was part of what made it attractive; individuals, startups and big corporations were on the same footing.

 

Now, however, the Internet is being used for things the engineers of the 1960s and 70s couldn't have envisioned, like video, telephone calls and Internet games.

 

It doesn't matter if an e-mail gets where it's going half a second late, but a half-second's delay in a phone call is annoying, and a half-second's delay in a fast-moving game can mean a missed shot.

 

Thus, the telecommunications companies want to be able to provide "tiered service," guaranteeing that, for a price, some packets will get to their destination on time.

 

The carriers are under "tremendous pressure" from customers to provide more reliable service, said Shawn White, director of external operations at Keynote Systems Inc., which tracks the performance of Web sites and the Internet.

 

Brief delays, for instance, could result in stuttering video, unacceptable to advertisers, White notes.

 

Whether they tier their service or not, telecommunications companies need to expand capacity. To do so costs money, and the telecoms argue that Internet users will have to pay, one way or another. They say it's preferable that the money come from those who need and are willing to pay for better service, rather than spreading the cost out over all users.

 

"We do have to recover the cost for building the new capacity out there that the content providers are expecting us to provide," said Jim Cicconi, AT&T Inc.'s senior executive vice president of external and legislative affairs.

 

AT&T already provides connections between offices of the same company, or between government offices, using AT&T's own lines rather than the public Internet. This allows AT&T to guarantee a certain quality level.

 

By prioritizing packets, AT&T could extend that service to the connection between a Web site and a surfer at home.

 

To the opponents, abandoning the "network neutrality" principle opens up the prospect of the carriers blocking sites that don't pay up or that compete with the carriers' own services - for instance, by providing phone calls.

 

The carriers have stoked those fears with some hard-line rhetoric. John Thorne, Verizon Communications Inc.'s senior vice president and deputy general counsel, was quoted by The Washington Post as telling a conference that Google "is enjoying a free lunch that should, by any rational account, be the lunch of the facilities providers."

 

Ed Whitacre, AT&T's chief executive, has raised eyebrows with similar statements to the effect that Google and Yahoo Inc. are freeloading on the Internet, a remarkable assertion considering both companies pay millions of dollars in Internet access fees, and their visitors pay for Internet access as well.

 

Brasil Telecom SA, Brazil's third-largest phone company, said in mid-February it had installed the first system that can identify information by type - say, a voice call - and bill the company providing it, addressing what the company calls "revenue leakage." The company would not give further details on its plans.

 

U.S. carriers are careful to point out that they don't intend to block anyone's Internet access or degrade service.

 

"None of the worst scenarios people have painted here can take place nor are they taking place," Cicconi said, adding that the government would stop any such abuse, as the Federal Communications Commission did in one case where a phone company that provides Internet services blocked a competing voice-over-Internet company.

 

Also, competition among carriers means they won't want to block sites for fear of losing customers, Cicconi said.

 

Opponents say that even if toll roads leave the rest of the Internet unimpeded, it will stifle innovation.

 

"The next great idea, the next Google or eBay or Napster or whatever, won't have the capital to get themselves in the fast lanes right away," said Ben Scott at Free Press, a nonprofit that promotes freedom of speech. "The reason the big e-companies were so successful were that they started on the same level playing field as everyone else."

 

Another objection to packet prioritization is technical.

 

The Internet2 association assumed that prioritization was the way to go when it started building a super-fast next-generation network connecting universities.

 

However, engineers abandoned that notion after a few years, concluding that it's more effective simply to expand the network's capacity for all traffic - adding lanes to the highway instead of a parallel toll road.

 

The FCC has supported net neutrality in somewhat hedged terms, leading to calls in Congress for a stronger defense of the principle to be included in a future telecommunications bill.

 

The telephone and cable companies are arguing against any such law, pointing to the traditionally very light regulation of the Internet.

 

"The hands-off policy has given us the flexibility to innovate and respond to consumer demand," said Kyle McSlarrow, chief executive of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association.

 

For the carriers, part of the attraction of a tiered Internet is probably that they would get away from being a "dumb pipe." They're the messengers, with the unglamorous job of passing along the data that others produce and consume. With tiered service, the carrier would become more important, and perhaps have more pricing power.

 

"It's very rational behavior in the industry. I would do the same thing if I was paid by my shareholders," Free Press' Scott said. "But rational market behavior doesn't necessarily mean good public service."

Any thoughts?

[Angela 1]

This smacks of information for money, instead of information for all. Its the capitalists last great fantasy pay for info, cause there is never an end to information, and you can profit from bad information as well as good (bad being false information, and hey with out money to make sure it isn't right, who is going to understand what is real and what is fake.)

[He Who Shall Not Be Named 2]

First, I couldn't determine Schram's opinion on the matter. It was simply a series of quotes by other people, not the firey rhetoric he usually spews.

 

Second, I think a graduated payment system for internet use makes perfect sense. Those people who want to use the internet for streaming video. gaming, and things like that where a late (or even lost) packet is detrimental to the service should be expected to pay more than someone who merely uses the internet for email or websurfing.

 

Logistically, however, it is harder to work out. I may be willing to pay more for faster service, but I and my ISP have no control over how much capacity is at the other end, the people sending to me. And they probably have no control over my capacities either.

 

So economic fairness must give way to engineering reality.

 

An alternative, however, would be to tax the senders of spam e-mails and use that revenue to increase capacity all around. If spam is paid for that is a source of revenue to increase capacity. If it is not paid for but the amount of spam drops then we can use more of our existing capacity.

 

So if we can figure out a way to tax spam that is all we need,

[Capt_Picard 0]

Um... see this isn't one of Ken's commentaries... it's a real news report... and from what I gather from it is that if ISP gets there way they could be able to block things if the seem fit to do so, and that there frightens me.

[Theunicornhunter 2]

I think the point of the article is about how to provide the increased capacity that will be necessary to keep the internet going. It seems that the options are a blanket fee to everyone or offering tiered surfaces so those who do the highend surfing (videos, gaming, etc) pay for their increased demand.

 

I don't really see a problem with that either; now as Lt. Roy points out - there may technical problems with this and as the article points out - it could make it easy for some providers to act "strategically"

[LordOfTheBorg 1]

Honestly, how will a ISP know what your looking at?

[stvoyagerfan 1]

i really am for sticking with the current system. yes the isp providers will need to expand their compacity.

 

the tiered system might seem good but that might leave the lower levels at a disadvantage with the people paying for the premium service so to speak gets better service.

 

spreading out the cost is better than priortizing in the long one.

 

the taxing of spammers great idea. there's something like that coming out where if you want to send an email directly into someones inbox you pay a penny per email to have it skip the spam filter.

 

the overall long term picture is what really needs to be looked at not just some short term fix that could do more harm than good in the long run.

[youbroughtheryouRiker 2]

I'm not fully alert right now, but the whole thing smacks of BS to a large degree. If there IS a bandwidth issue, then the issue needs to be handled at the FCC. It's THEIR job to allocate bandwidth efficiently. And I bring the FCC into it because the main company griping is AT&T, not Comcast which relies more on its cable internet service. Also, why can't AT&T multiplex? This could be an issue of company inefficiencies with AT&T. Third, why isn't there mention of fiber optics, which offer better capacity than even cable?

 

For points two and three, there would have to be some extra cash inflow to the companies to make multiplexing or fiber optics a better likelihood, but tiered service doesn't seem to be all that plausible.

 

Like I said though, my mind's kind of in a fog right now. I'll have to get back to this later.

[Theunicornhunter 2]

the tiered system might seem good but that might leave the lower levels at a disadvantage with the people paying for the premium service so to speak gets better service.

 

spreading out the cost is better than priortizing in the long one.

 

I disagree, the same debate is going on right now with cell phone services - whether to assess a flat tax straight across the board or tax based on usage. I am one of those few people who has a cell phone only for emergences - I don't want to pay the same tax as someone who has a phone glued to their head.

 

As for the internet - again why should I, who doesn't play online games or download video etc, pay the same as someone who does? Paying less for a lower service tier should be an option for the budget conscious

[youbroughtheryouRiker 2]

As for the internet - again why should I, who doesn't play online games or download video etc, pay the same as someone who does? Paying less for a lower service tier should be an option for the budget conscious

 

Perhaps, but lower tiers also get terrible servicing as they are considered a "lesser priority" and therefore, they don't have to do as committed a job fixing the problems. We had this sort of a problem with an email server once. We were on Listbot, and Listbot kept crashing, and each time, our administrator got a message afterwards saying something to the effect of "you know, this wouldn't happen if you upgraded to Listbot Gold!" Needless to say, they lost our business, all the while earning the nickname "Lostbit" in the process. It's a little like getting your meal made later than other customers simply because yours isn't as expensive as their dinners. If the same model was applied to your cell phone service, you'd be hollering at your provider saying, "I have a phone for emergencies like the one that just happened, and you crapped out on me!" and they, in reply saying, "We're sorry. To prevent this from happening the next time there's an emergency, why don't you upgrade to this plan?" It's unprofessional, but unfortunately, it goes on. Flat rates at least remove that incentive; unfortunately, they remove some positive incentives as well.

 

As I said though, I'm not completely convinced by this capacity argument either. I think there are other things that could solve the problem that AT&T are keeping under wraps right now.