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Do you think Comcast should be prohibited from offering asymmetric broadband connections? Suppose Comcast offered the following packages: - 6 megabits down, 2

Do you think Comcast should be prohibited from offering asymmetric broadband connections? Suppose Comcast offered the following packages: - 6 megabits down, 2 megabits up for $50/month - 10 megabits down, 4 megabits up for $80/month - 10 megabigs down, 4 megabits up, 20 megabits to youtube.com for $35/month You're telling me that package 3 reduces consumer welfare and threatens the internet? Suppose another package were added: - 2 megabits down, 2 megabits up, all requests matching bing.com?q= redirect to google.com?q= ... price FREE. How is consumer welfare being harmed? Any consumer who would choose this package values free internet more than the "right" to use Bing. Or, suppose there is a mainstream movie about bittorent and suddenly Comcast decides to offer the following: 20 megabits down, 20 megabits up, no torrent traffic: $30/month. (with bittorrent it costs $80/month) I'd argue that protocols have evolved to exploit network neutrality. Why should your ISP pay for Skype's supernode? Why should bandwidth hogging protocol users hog all the bandwidth? Residential bandwidth sales are speculative, since the ISP doesn't have 20 megabits for every customer who is paying for it. The system works b/c people don't max out their connection and rarely use peak bandwidth at exactly the same time. I think under this usage pattern, it's reasonable for prohibitions to exist. I also think that there should be higher tier bandwidth (like if you buy your own OC3) where you are buying all the bandwidth whether you use it or not. For such services non-neutrality makes no sense whatsoever.

wtallis 16y ago
The problem isn't so much that Comcast et al. want to offer packages 3, 4, and 5, it's that they want to discontinue packages 1 and 2 and replace them with crippled packages at the same price, with premium charges for YouTube, etc. "Why should bandwidth hogging protocol users hog all the bandwidth?" Why don't ISPs simply charge by the megabyte, so that by the time they have too many bandwidth hogs on their network, they're bringing in enough money to afford network upgrades? "Bandwidth" isn't some fixed resource. If there's demand for more, the suppliers can provide more by either laying extra cables or upgrading the equipment at the ends of their fibers, and this kind of reaction can happen on the timescale of months, which makes it pretty fluid given that consumers also pay by the month.
- grandalf 16y ago
  True, but it's more a case of a small number of users resulting in tremendous loss of profits. Suppose you open a restaurant and offer free bread and some customers come in and buy the cheapest item on the menu and eat $10 worth of bread. It's just not sustainable.
  - brazzy 16y ago
    Which is why no restaurant claims to offer unlimited free bread. There is no "but". If it were actually true that a small number of users consume so much bandwidth that it causes "tremendous loss of profits", then ISPs should drop the "unlimited bandwidth" claim. But they want to keep that because it's just so nice for marketing. What they really want is to claim "unlimited bandwidth" without actually offering it.
A1kmm 16y ago
In my comment, I said that asymmetric connections are not a network neutrality issue - by which I mean that proposed network neutrality laws don't / shouldn't cover them, so the article is bringing up a strawman issue. Options 4 and 5 are network neutrality issues. If they are allowed, it is likely that they could be more cost effective for ISPs, and become the only options. Competition doesn't work for things like this, because most consumers don't understand the benefits of network neutrality. However, deviations from network neutrality are bad for everyone in the long run, because it means that ISPs become gatekeepers, and slow innovation on the Internet. If I were to use Skype, I would pay my ISP for traffic between my computer and Skype's supernode, and the owner of the Skype supernode pays their ISP for the traffic as well. The only time traffic isn't paid for is generally when it gets to the tier 1 networks, who don't charge each other because the exchange of traffic is mutually beneficial. Given a fixed level of network hardware, bandwidth is a scarce resource, and economics provides a very good way to manage scarce resources - charge for them. This is exactly what happens at present. There is no need for any kind of ISP control over what sites are accessed or what protocols are used - and if too many people are using the bandwidth, ISPs can simply put up the price. ISPs undoubtedly oversell bandwidth - but that is not an insurmountable problem for ISPs if there are network neutrality laws - they can either oversell bandwidth by less, or just stop overselling.
- grandalf 16y ago
  As one of the other comments pointed out, ISPs could just charge for bandwidth. The current (speculative) pricing schemes and hypothetical non-neutral pricing schemes are simply alternatives to pricing per megabyte. Why? Because ISPs believe that their product appears to have moe value when it's sold as x megabits per second for y dollars rather than x megabytes for y dollars. Since most customers can't estimate how many megabytes they use each month, it makes little sense to price the product that way. Whereas many customers know that if they currently have 10 Megabits, if they upgraded to 20 megabits their downloads would be faster. Comcast's boost pricing is evidence of the way ISPs are evolving to meet consumer demands. They give you lots of bandwidth for just long enough to let you download a song or a movie, but don't constantly make it available to you. This creates the perception of faster speeds for most customers.
ubernostrum 16y ago
For such services non-neutrality makes no sense whatsoever. Basically the whole point of purchasing internet access is that you can use the sites and services you choose, just as the whole point of purchasing telephone service is that you can call the people you choose and receive calls from others. Thus I have a hard time seeing how non-neutrality makes much sense on any sort of plan. If a customer is using the service to excess, charge the customer for use -- that's perfectly sensible. But saying "this customers used the service to excess, therefore we will disable part of the service for all customers" is nonsensical.
- grandalf 16y ago
  I think the key point is that customers are very different and that currently "broadband" is sold as a single type of product. The person who downloads a few songs and videos and checks email wants a very different product from the person who is constantly uploading torrents. Net neutrality is mostly just FUD though b/c with the exception of protocols that specifically exploit "shared bandwidth" pricing, it's unlikely to impact anyone (since consumers do like choice). Even my google/bing example is quite farfetched, b/c it's not likely worth enough to Google to subsidize bandwidth just to get search clicks, and in any case Comcast could sell Google analytics data without having to restrict anyone's choices.
Symmetry 16y ago
The problem is that Comcast wants to sell "20 megabits down, 20 megabits up, no torrent traffic" but market it as "20 megabits down, 20 megabits up". Which is actually a problem that doesn't require complete network neutrality to solve, but might benefit from government intervention.
- krschultz 16y ago
  Agreed that is a problem, but if you have noticed most of them have dropped the "unlimited!" from their slogans. I recall when my local cable provider was called Optimum Online Unlimited!. What they meant was that it was unlimited time, always on. Explictedly not unlimited bandwidth. I know this becuase I was cut off about 3 times in 6 months for using too much bandwidth. When you used to have to pay per minute, having an always on internet connection was "unlimited". Now everyone just assumes they pay 1 price per month for having access to the internet for the entire month. Would it make any sense to build the infrastructure so that every customer can saturate 20 megabits down every minute of every day of the month? Of course not. So they can't provide the model of always connected and unlimited bandwidth. It's one or the other. I have an option of different speeds through my provider, and I'm OK with paying extra for the higher speed. Internet connection is more important to me than what channels I get on TV (which begs the question why I pay more for TV than internet). My parents would rather have more channels and slower internet. I don't see anything wrong with that.

wtallis 16y ago

The problem isn't so much that Comcast et al. want to offer packages 3, 4, and 5, it's that they want to discontinue packages 1 and 2 and replace them with crippled packages at the same price, with premium charges for YouTube, etc. "Why should bandwidth hogging protocol users hog all the bandwidth?" Why don't ISPs simply charge by the megabyte, so that by the time they have too many bandwidth hogs on their network, they're bringing in enough money to afford network upgrades? "Bandwidth" isn't some fixed resource. If there's demand for more, the suppliers can provide more by either laying extra cables or upgrading the equipment at the ends of their fibers, and this kind of reaction can happen on the timescale of months, which makes it pretty fluid given that consumers also pay by the month.

grandalf 16y ago
True, but it's more a case of a small number of users resulting in tremendous loss of profits. Suppose you open a restaurant and offer free bread and some customers come in and buy the cheapest item on the menu and eat $10 worth of bread. It's just not sustainable.
- brazzy 16y ago
  Which is why no restaurant claims to offer unlimited free bread. There is no "but". If it were actually true that a small number of users consume so much bandwidth that it causes "tremendous loss of profits", then ISPs should drop the "unlimited bandwidth" claim. But they want to keep that because it's just so nice for marketing. What they really want is to claim "unlimited bandwidth" without actually offering it.

A1kmm 16y ago

In my comment, I said that asymmetric connections are not a network neutrality issue - by which I mean that proposed network neutrality laws don't / shouldn't cover them, so the article is bringing up a strawman issue. Options 4 and 5 are network neutrality issues. If they are allowed, it is likely that they could be more cost effective for ISPs, and become the only options. Competition doesn't work for things like this, because most consumers don't understand the benefits of network neutrality. However, deviations from network neutrality are bad for everyone in the long run, because it means that ISPs become gatekeepers, and slow innovation on the Internet. If I were to use Skype, I would pay my ISP for traffic between my computer and Skype's supernode, and the owner of the Skype supernode pays their ISP for the traffic as well. The only time traffic isn't paid for is generally when it gets to the tier 1 networks, who don't charge each other because the exchange of traffic is mutually beneficial. Given a fixed level of network hardware, bandwidth is a scarce resource, and economics provides a very good way to manage scarce resources - charge for them. This is exactly what happens at present. There is no need for any kind of ISP control over what sites are accessed or what protocols are used - and if too many people are using the bandwidth, ISPs can simply put up the price. ISPs undoubtedly oversell bandwidth - but that is not an insurmountable problem for ISPs if there are network neutrality laws - they can either oversell bandwidth by less, or just stop overselling.

grandalf 16y ago
As one of the other comments pointed out, ISPs could just charge for bandwidth. The current (speculative) pricing schemes and hypothetical non-neutral pricing schemes are simply alternatives to pricing per megabyte. Why? Because ISPs believe that their product appears to have moe value when it's sold as x megabits per second for y dollars rather than x megabytes for y dollars. Since most customers can't estimate how many megabytes they use each month, it makes little sense to price the product that way. Whereas many customers know that if they currently have 10 Megabits, if they upgraded to 20 megabits their downloads would be faster. Comcast's boost pricing is evidence of the way ISPs are evolving to meet consumer demands. They give you lots of bandwidth for just long enough to let you download a song or a movie, but don't constantly make it available to you. This creates the perception of faster speeds for most customers.

ubernostrum 16y ago

For such services non-neutrality makes no sense whatsoever. Basically the whole point of purchasing internet access is that you can use the sites and services you choose, just as the whole point of purchasing telephone service is that you can call the people you choose and receive calls from others. Thus I have a hard time seeing how non-neutrality makes much sense on any sort of plan. If a customer is using the service to excess, charge the customer for use -- that's perfectly sensible. But saying "this customers used the service to excess, therefore we will disable part of the service for all customers" is nonsensical.

grandalf 16y ago
I think the key point is that customers are very different and that currently "broadband" is sold as a single type of product. The person who downloads a few songs and videos and checks email wants a very different product from the person who is constantly uploading torrents. Net neutrality is mostly just FUD though b/c with the exception of protocols that specifically exploit "shared bandwidth" pricing, it's unlikely to impact anyone (since consumers do like choice). Even my google/bing example is quite farfetched, b/c it's not likely worth enough to Google to subsidize bandwidth just to get search clicks, and in any case Comcast could sell Google analytics data without having to restrict anyone's choices.

Symmetry 16y ago

The problem is that Comcast wants to sell "20 megabits down, 20 megabits up, no torrent traffic" but market it as "20 megabits down, 20 megabits up". Which is actually a problem that doesn't require complete network neutrality to solve, but might benefit from government intervention.

krschultz 16y ago
Agreed that is a problem, but if you have noticed most of them have dropped the "unlimited!" from their slogans. I recall when my local cable provider was called Optimum Online Unlimited!. What they meant was that it was unlimited time, always on. Explictedly not unlimited bandwidth. I know this becuase I was cut off about 3 times in 6 months for using too much bandwidth. When you used to have to pay per minute, having an always on internet connection was "unlimited". Now everyone just assumes they pay 1 price per month for having access to the internet for the entire month. Would it make any sense to build the infrastructure so that every customer can saturate 20 megabits down every minute of every day of the month? Of course not. So they can't provide the model of always connected and unlimited bandwidth. It's one or the other. I have an option of different speeds through my provider, and I'm OK with paying extra for the higher speed. Internet connection is more important to me than what channels I get on TV (which begs the question why I pay more for TV than internet). My parents would rather have more channels and slower internet. I don't see anything wrong with that.