4 ms·

How is this different from me paying for more for faster internet?

by gravy 9y ago

JoeAltmaier 9y ago
Because the last mile is (sometimes) truly bandwidth limited. But the trunk lines aren't. Now they just get to extort money from us or artificially throttle us. Worse, they'll likely (as they have everywhere else) extort money for websites they have no connection to (like Facebook or Twitter) just because they can. Like an entrepreneurial thug standing outside a club and extracting an extra fee to let folks in. Or paying protection money to the mob. Like that.
- notyourday 9y ago
  Exactly opposite. Last line is not bandwidth limited - FTTH exists. FIOS and even comcast do that. 100 people at 1Gbit/sec to the edge are 100Gbit/sec in the core to content providers. [Edit: Downvoting 2+2 being 4 is stupid] 1 Gbit/sec is easily deliverable at the edge, even if it costs 5 thousand dollars to get it connected. 1 Gbit/sec of non-oversubscribed IP transit is at least $500/mo. A building with 100 apartments would require $50,000 a month in IP transit costs. This does not include costs of the long distance fiber, locations for PNI and gear that can do 48x 100Gbit/sec ports. So your Interwebz is going to cost you either > $600 a month or you get congestion and that congestion would be coming from the core, not from the edge
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    Sure the last mile is arguable - not for me, as I live in the country and DSL is what I get. But we could invest and do better there too. Still its nothing compared to the extortion racket, holding websites hostage .
  - wtallis 9y ago
    You're replying to a comment about the current state of existing infrastructure by talking about the theoretical possibility of new infrastructure that could be deployed with today's technology, but largely isn't being deployed.
    - notyourday 9y ago
      That's something that you should bring up with your local government. It is your local government that is blocking roll outs of FTTH. Even at 10Mbit/sec congestion will be at the core. Comcast currently claims to have 22.3 million internet customers. At 10 Mbit/sec it means 223.3 MILLION megabit per second that needed to be handed off to transit. It is not possible.
      - wtallis 9y ago
        > That's something that you should bring up with your local government. It is your local government that is blocking roll outs of FTTH. That's definitely not true in my specific case, and probably isn't true all that often in the general case. Deploying FTTH to existing paying customers who already have halfway decent infrastructure doesn't have a very compelling short-term return on investment even when the local government is doing everything they can to encourage it.
        notyourday 9y ago
        They are blocking competitors from installing fiber via franchise agreements or requirement that entire municipality is wired. By doing that your municipality is preventing price competition on the physical last mile which means that Comcast has no need to upgrade service.
- gravy 9y ago
  It was a question of genuine curiosity. Thanks. How do the regulations or whatever it is that was repealed stop them from doing so? I actually have no idea what was repealed.
scoon1329 9y ago
From what I understand, the difference is that even if you pay more for that faster internet, you may still not load sites as fast because they haven't paid the ISP for their traffic to be prioritised over others. Also if you run a website and have paid for a decent connection to serve your site through, you may still not be able to serve that site as fast as you can without paying additional ISP's to prioritise your traffic.
snarfy 9y ago
It hurts entrepreneurs a lot more than the end user. With tiered internet comes tiered pricing and tiered access. 'Basic' internet will get you google.com, facebook, etc. If you get the 'sports' package then you get espn.com. If you get the 'DIY' package you get some howto sites, craftsy, maybe thingiverse. But what if you come up with a brand new DIY site that you wish to host ads, have logins and accounts with monthly fees, etc. How will anybody ever see your site with tiered internet? Your new site is not be in any of the predetermined packages. You would have to go to the ISP and beg/pay them to get your site added to the 'DIY' package just to even get any traffic at all, let alone users. It totally destroys innovation and tilts the playing field towards the existing incumbents.

How is this different from me paying for more for faster internet?

by gravy 9y ago

How is this different from me paying for more for faster internet?

Because the last mile is (sometimes) truly bandwidth limited. But the trunk lines aren't. Now they just get to extort money from us or artificially throttle us. Worse, they'll likely (as they have everywhere else) extort money for websites they have no connection to (like Facebook or Twitter) just because they can. Like an entrepreneurial thug standing outside a club and extracting an extra fee to let folks in. Or paying protection money to the mob. Like that.

notyourday 9y ago
Exactly opposite. Last line is not bandwidth limited - FTTH exists. FIOS and even comcast do that. 100 people at 1Gbit/sec to the edge are 100Gbit/sec in the core to content providers. [Edit: Downvoting 2+2 being 4 is stupid] 1 Gbit/sec is easily deliverable at the edge, even if it costs 5 thousand dollars to get it connected. 1 Gbit/sec of non-oversubscribed IP transit is at least $500/mo. A building with 100 apartments would require $50,000 a month in IP transit costs. This does not include costs of the long distance fiber, locations for PNI and gear that can do 48x 100Gbit/sec ports. So your Interwebz is going to cost you either > $600 a month or you get congestion and that congestion would be coming from the core, not from the edge
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  Sure the last mile is arguable - not for me, as I live in the country and DSL is what I get. But we could invest and do better there too. Still its nothing compared to the extortion racket, holding websites hostage .
- wtallis 9y ago
  You're replying to a comment about the current state of existing infrastructure by talking about the theoretical possibility of new infrastructure that could be deployed with today's technology, but largely isn't being deployed.
  - notyourday 9y ago
    That's something that you should bring up with your local government. It is your local government that is blocking roll outs of FTTH. Even at 10Mbit/sec congestion will be at the core. Comcast currently claims to have 22.3 million internet customers. At 10 Mbit/sec it means 223.3 MILLION megabit per second that needed to be handed off to transit. It is not possible.
    - wtallis 9y ago
      > That's something that you should bring up with your local government. It is your local government that is blocking roll outs of FTTH. That's definitely not true in my specific case, and probably isn't true all that often in the general case. Deploying FTTH to existing paying customers who already have halfway decent infrastructure doesn't have a very compelling short-term return on investment even when the local government is doing everything they can to encourage it.
      - notyourday 9y ago
        They are blocking competitors from installing fiber via franchise agreements or requirement that entire municipality is wired. By doing that your municipality is preventing price competition on the physical last mile which means that Comcast has no need to upgrade service.
gravy 9y ago
It was a question of genuine curiosity. Thanks. How do the regulations or whatever it is that was repealed stop them from doing so? I actually have no idea what was repealed.

scoon1329 9y ago

From what I understand, the difference is that even if you pay more for that faster internet, you may still not load sites as fast because they haven't paid the ISP for their traffic to be prioritised over others. Also if you run a website and have paid for a decent connection to serve your site through, you may still not be able to serve that site as fast as you can without paying additional ISP's to prioritise your traffic.

snarfy 9y ago

It hurts entrepreneurs a lot more than the end user. With tiered internet comes tiered pricing and tiered access. 'Basic' internet will get you google.com, facebook, etc. If you get the 'sports' package then you get espn.com. If you get the 'DIY' package you get some howto sites, craftsy, maybe thingiverse. But what if you come up with a brand new DIY site that you wish to host ads, have logins and accounts with monthly fees, etc. How will anybody ever see your site with tiered internet? Your new site is not be in any of the predetermined packages. You would have to go to the ISP and beg/pay them to get your site added to the 'DIY' package just to even get any traffic at all, let alone users. It totally destroys innovation and tilts the playing field towards the existing incumbents.