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"Very bold or very dumb": data caps don't apply to ISP's own movie service
- MatthewB 15y agoThis is exactly what I've been fearing for a while. As soon as we go soft on the net neutrality issue, ISPs are going to take advantage. Favoring some traffic over others because they are part of an ISPs product line is ridiculous and anti-competitive. With practices like these it will become increasingly rare for startups to be able to compete with large companies because customers won't want to spend extra money to use a startup's service. There is a distinct difference between capping a customer's traffic after a certain point (which I don't agree with either) and favoring some traffic over another. This is bad for everyone.
- jerf 15y agoBut some traffic is favored over others, by sheer network topology. Internet traffic costs money or peering agreements (which is ultimately just money that happens to cancel out). Traffic from the network you are currently connected to is much, much cheaper for the ISP. I offer the opposite argument, which is that charging you for data sourced within the same network the same as external traffic is what would be the bizarre, anti-consumer behavior. If you want force anything on the ISPs, force them to allow others to home their services directly on their network for some reasonable fee, and then treat it also as uncharged traffic. (I'm not sure it carries the day, so debate away. It should be put out there, though.)
- scottbessler 15y agoThere is a lot more complication and loophole-ability in forcing ISPs to allow others to home their services than there is in forcing net neutrality in its traditional definition.
- IgorPartola 15y agoFor what it's worth, often times if you rent a server, you get no charges for communicating with other servers in the same data center.
- windsurfer 15y agoThis is slightly different since the company you rent the server from is paying an ISP for internet traffic. If you don't use that bandwidth, the server company isn't charged and they pass the savings to you. With this issue, you're still using the network bandwidth you paid for, it's still going on the internet, but its end point is a server owned by the ISP. You are not accessing a special subnet IP - you're using internet DNS and internet infrustructure to pass this "free" data. I would even bet that if there was damage to the network and there was no direct route to the server, your packets may end up routing outside of the ISPs inrastructure.
- ramy_d 15y agohow much money does internet traffic cost? how much cheaper is local traffic from the ISP versus traffic coming from a server 1500km away? how much money does it cost to send internet traffic to varying distances. there's no problem with the argument, but "much, much cheaper" doesn't mean anything in an industry where every byte can be measured and tracked. we're not asking how much does Shaw feel like billing us today, we're asking how much does 1 Mb of data cost them to send over distance.
- IgorPartola 15y agohttp://drpeering.net/white-papers/Internet-Transit-Pricing-Historical-And-Projected.php http://drpeering.net/white-papers/Internet-Transit-Pricing-H... So roughly a penny a gigabyte as of 2011.
- warfangle 15y agoSo Comcast's 250gb limit costs them $2.50?
- IgorPartola 15y agoI doubt it. This is just the cost of transmitting data from say Netflix to Comcast.
- corin_ 15y agoDon't forget costs such as network infrastructure, staff, etc etc. To take an anology from the pharmaceuticals industy, the second GB costs one cent, the first one is a fair bit more expensive.
- ramy_d 15y agoI would gladly pay per gig at that rate, and then some.
- JamesPeterson 15y agoIf you want to pay for the infrastructure and fixed costs too, go right ahead.
- oasisbob 15y agoTraffic from the network you are currently connected to is much, much cheaper for the ISP. That's not always true. Eyeball networks are often spectrum-constrained and congested on the last mile. When a DOCSIS network becomes congested, the most common relief is a node-split, and those are very expensive.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- tybris 15y agoThat's not how the Internet business model works. Receiving data is effectively free. Transit providers charge the sender for the bitrate (high for the web host, low for the web user) and a fixed fee for the connection, which you will have to pay regardless. Peering is paid for per connection and often by the web hosts who want to avoid transit and get better latency to the ISPs customers. In terms of traffic, there is effectively no difference in cost between sending traffic internally or receiving it from an external source. The reason for data caps is that ultimately networks are capacity constrained, but mostly at the last mile, not at the peering and transit links.
- Locke1689 15y agoThis is totally false. Inter-AS traffic is often priced using bandwidth in peered connections. In a bandwidth discrepency situation one isp will usually have to pay a lot more for the inter-AS traffic.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- tybris 15y agoRight, and that's the sender, which is what I said. Note that the amount of traffic is effectively irrelevant since the connection is supposed to be dedicated. The only reason why the amount of traffic matters is that you need to decide which side pays what.
- Locke1689 15y agoNo. Generally the agreement works like this: "we'll set up a peering agreement between us. As long as the traffic differential is within 3%, peering is free. Beyond that point, the exceeding party will pay an excess penalty of x/GB."
- IgorPartola 15y ago> There is a distinct difference between capping a customer's traffic after a certain point (which I don't agree with either) Why do you not agree with it? Is it because you feel that you have no choice in the matter, or because you think it is somehow wrong to charge for some things and not others. Once again, this is the ISP's house, and their rules. They can charge $10 billion per byte. You don't have to pay of course. The big problem I see with this is if they deliberately slow down services like Netflix. Or if by providing their own streaming service, they are exhausting the bandwidth, thus effectively throttling services like Netflix. Otherwise, they have a natural advantage: they are transmitting data from a much closer location. Otherwise, it would be like requiring that your water company deliver you water sourced in the Alps for the same price as from your local reservoir. EDIT: Back to data caps issues: I love them. Because now if there is any question on what I can or cannot do, there is no fuzzy wording about "appropriate network use", etc. I get 100GB a month or I do not. Anything "unlimited" is evil. My big issue is that companies like Verizon, AT&T, etc. only sell plans that are capped very low: 2GB a month is nothing for the way I use data. Give me 200GB a month and I'll pay $30-45/mo for the privilege. And while you are at it, drop the silly minutes notion. Just provide data.
- forensic 15y agoMonopolies are bad. The infrastructure was paid for by taxpayers. Your libertarian logic does not apply here.
- IgorPartola 15y agoOh boy. I am not talking about any political agenda. All I am saying is that (1) it costs the ISP less to transmit data between their servers and your house than between Netflix to their servers to your house and (2) the ISP can charge almost whatever it wants. The only reason why they do not, is because they actually want to make money. Also, it's not quite right: the tax payers did not pay for the infrastructure. The local government did, based on lobbyist pressure from the ISP. While you and are are shooting shit on HN companies like Time Warner Cable do this: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/op-ed-north-carolina-broadband-bill-would-eliminate-level-playing-field.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/op-ed-north-...
- juiceandjuice 15y agoI really do think ISPs should operate based on some sense of duty cycle. Part of the problem with the word "unlimited" is that it's still a holdover from the dial-up days. For example... Guarantee me "unlimited" 5Mbps internet at a 20% duty cycle. That's 300GB a month. The cap is there by convention, but the internet is still "unlimited". Alternatively, give me 8640 "Bandwidth minutes" a month with the option to auto-throttle if I might go over, or disconnect for the month at 8640. Unfortunately, most customers are in fact stupid, and a data cap is often the best way to say "We let you use our internet resources at up to NN% duty cycle per month"
- liedra 15y agoCustomers are not stupid for not knowing about duty cycle in the slightest. The scheme you described above is completely incomprehensible. Perhaps if you tried to explain it in more engaging and inclusive ways, "most customers" would not be "stupid". Defining "20% duty cycle" and "bandwidth minutes" and "auto-throttle" in non-technical terms would probably be a good start. Until then, stop being patronising and calling people outside of your area of expertise "stupid". It's not going to win you any arguments.
- ImperatorLunae 15y agoThis is not bad for everyone. Such blatant abuse of data capping rules is excellent ammunition for net neutrality advocates.
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- jcromartie 15y agoThis is what net neutrality was all about. They said it would never happen...
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- MatthewPhillips 15y agoMy ideal ISP: Providing internet access is their only business. They thrive at providing as fast service as they can. If they have to have data caps that's fine; but they don't advertise unlimited unless that's what they provide. They don't inspect packets. It seems that few of my ideal ISPs exist. My question is: why? Does the market not favor this type of ISP? Or does the other type have a competitive advantage that prevents my ideal ISP from thriving (and if so, what is it?)?
- natnat 15y agoWhen all you do is provide a dumb pipe, you're a commodity. When you're selling a commodity, and there is any competition at all, your margins will race down to virtually nothing pretty damn quickly. No one wants to invest billions of dollars to build up the infrastructure for a barely profitable ISP.
- MatthewPhillips 15y agoDoes it matter? If consumers want the commodity won't someone step forth to take the small margins? So is it ultimately that consumers don't want this particular commodity badly enough to force the market to exist?
- RyanKearney 15y ago>No one wants to invest billions of dollars to build up the infrastructure for a barely profitable ISP. Google does.
- tedunangst 15y agoProviding internet access is not Google's only business.
- untog 15y agoBut Google isn't an ISP and an ISP only. They make a ton of money as a direct result of you having an internet connection.
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- rickdale 15y agoAt college I worked close to the networking department. It was common knowledge that whenever a computer went to do a speed test, the user would get more bandwith, thus showing a higher speed. It was also the case that faculty got more bandwith during the day. The internet was shoddy and this was just 2 years ago..
- alex_c 15y agoThis is what data caps have been about all along, at least in Canada - I sincerely hope no one is surprised. I'm just a bit surprised to see Shaw leading the charge, and not Rogers or Bell. This is what happens when all the major ISPs in a country also happen to be the major TV companies. There's no reason to expect them to just roll over and die while the Internet eats their lunch.
- halostatue 15y agoShaw is smaller than Rogers or Bell. If they can get away with it, you can bet that Rogers and Bell will be chasing quickly behind. Stephen "Friend to Big Businesses and Media Conglomerates" Harper won't bat an eyelid about how bad this is for consumers and competition.
- kefs 15y agoThis article is incorrect. https://twitter.com/#!/ShawInfo/status/91924351456260096 https://twitter.com/#!/ShawInfo/status/91924351456260096
- jmreid 15y agoIf you watch shows through their set top box it doesn't count towards any limit. So, kind of like standard cable going to a TV, where the TV channels are on a dedicated 'connection' to the provider and watching TV doesn't utilize the broadband connection. I'd like to know if their set top box utilizes the same pipe and throughput going to your house, and if watching a show through their set top box would diminish throughput speeds for others on the line. If it does, then that's bogus. If their box utilizes a separate dedicated connection to Shaw, then that's fine and I say fair. However, in practice, it's hard for average folks to understand why Shaw's box doesn't count towards a limit when the Apple TV, Netflix-enabled Blu-ray box or whatever DOES count towards the limit. But I'm not sure Shaw is in the wrong here if their box has a dedicated 'line' to them.
- tobylane 15y agoThis varies. Virgin TV (UK) has true on-demand, it's streamed over their cable to their box in your living room when you request it, rather than Sky who can do things like show a three hour film at 8/9/10pm.
- jsz0 15y agoIt utilizes the same pipe insofar as it uses the same cable HFC plant/infrastructure to deliver the signal to your home. On the wire however typically VoD services on set tops do not use the same DOCSIS channels as cable modems delivering IP video via Netflix, Hulu, etc. Cable VoD typically is just a block of regular video channels. Your set top requests a program and one of those video channels is allocated for this program. It's a bit old fashioned but it works. It is however possible to do this over DOCSIS which starts to blur the lines.
- bbatsell 15y agoNo, it isn't. Whether they've modified their announced plans due to backlash remains to be seen, but the information came from Shaw Communications president Peter Bissonnette, who justified it by saying, "There should be some advantage to you being a customer."
- dstein 15y agoIt's not bold or dumb in Canada. Expect to see similar plans from Rogers and Bell very soon. The Canadian telecom industry, backed by the CRTC, has operated as a public cartel for a very long time now. These are the same folks responsible for giving us the highest cell phone rates in the world, no such thing as nation-wide long distance plans, maximum data caps that dropped from 95GB to 80GB over the past 5 years (at least on Rogers), and basic cell phone plans don't even come with call display or voice mail (those are extra features). Unless a government rolls in and breaks the ISP portions off into independent companies I don't see anything on the horizon stopping this syndicate.
- mwilcox 15y agoWe've had things like this in NZ for several years now
- soneil 15y agoI'm in mixed minds about this. For as long as I remember, Australian linux users have been able to download isos from their ISPs own mirrors, without it counting against their cap. Which makes total sense, because it's internal to the ISPs network, so it costs them zero in peering fees. It's hard to argue that this is a bad idea. Now Shaw do the same thing, and it's .. awkward. It smells anticompetitive & self-serving. But it's essentially the same thing.
- decadentcactus 15y agoiinet (at least) also gives free quota to 3FL gaming servers, as well as a large portion of Steam downloads. Which I've definitely never had a problem with it (still being able to play games when capped = :D)
- mwsherman 15y agoI’m afraid this demonstrates how ad-hoc the definition of net neutrality is. No packets are being blocked; none are being slowed down. The ISP is not charging any content provider a special rate. (If having the content “homed” on the ISP’s network is a problem, then any CDN would be a problem.) I am not saying that the ISP isn’t taking advantage for their own benefit. I am not saying it’s not shady. I am saying that the behavior is not a violation of any previous technical definition of neutrality – maybe the “spirit” of it, but technologists don’t believe in spirits, one hopes.
- argv_empty 15y agoNo packets are being blocked; none are being slowed down. Sure they are. If I try to watch n GB of movies on NetFlix, then the last n-m GB get blocked, whereas on the ISP's service, none do (where n > m = data cap). maybe the “spirit” of it, but technologists don’t believe in spirits, one hopes. This is a pretty silly equivocation.
- digamber_kamat 15y agoThis thing is very common in India. Check out http://emergic.org/2009/02/17/we-versus-vodafone/ http://emergic.org/2009/02/17/we-versus-vodafone/ http://emergic.org/2009/02/18/we-versus-vodafone-day-2/ http://emergic.org/2009/02/18/we-versus-vodafone-day-2/ http://emergic.org/2009/02/18/we-versus-vodafone-day-2/ http://emergic.org/2009/02/18/we-versus-vodafone-day-2/
- naner 15y agoComcast appears to be aware of the net neutrality concerns since they don't give their Xfinity streaming service any preference[1]. Their VOIP, however, doesn't count against your quota. They claim that is because it uses different infrastructure. 1: http://customer.comcast.com/Pages/FAQViewer.aspx?seoid=Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Excessive-Use#otherusage http://customer.comcast.com/Pages/FAQViewer.aspx?seoid=Frequ...
- alsocasey 15y agoThis is actually an interesting point - Shaw's VOIP service similarly doesn't count towards cap. As mentioned in the update to the ArsTechnica article, the movie service not counting is apparently because it is delivered via different infrastructure - "Shaw's existing video-on-demand QAM cable infrastructure. When users access Movie Club through a computer, they will access an IP-based version of it delivered over the Internet—and this will affect monthly data caps." but surely the VOIP phone data is delievered over the internet...
- afiler 15y agoThe VOIP data is probably not delivered over the internet for local calls. The calls probably come out of the cable network and hit a softswitch in the same city. For local calls, they probably have a TDM interface (T1s/DS3s etc) to the incumbent carrier and possibly other CLECs too.
- Maci 15y agoSlightly offtopic perhaps, but would IPv6 + multicast use substantially lower the cost for ISPs and Content Providers ? By that same token, wouldn't that be a reason to push IPv6 more into the market place as everybody wins in the end ?
- wmf 15y agoMulticast doesn't (currently) work in the Internet due to router state cost, and is orthogonal from IPv6. In a hypothetical Internet where multicast works and is free, I could see pirates adopting it but anybody who can afford to pay would probably stick with unicast — bandwidth isn't that expensive these days.
- Maci 15y agoMerci.
- Splines 15y agoTaking this even further, what if an ISP partnered with Google/Facebook/Twitter/whatever to expose their services on an "internal" box, and thusly provide an extreme "basic internet" ISP package that didn't allow you to leave the ISP's network? Alternatively, should ISPs be charging for P2P traffic that stays within the network?
- wmf 15y agoshould ISPs be charging for P2P traffic that stays within the network? In some cases (DOCSIS), such traffic costs the ISP much more than downstream Internet traffic. http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/pubs/networking/peerto09.pdf http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/pubs/networking/peerto09.pdf
- lmz 15y agoThere are already "basic packages" like that where I live: free access to Facebook using Facebook Zero. Also BlackBerry access packages that only give you email & chat / Facebook access only, without web browser access to the entire Web.
- shaunfs 15y agoI understand the argument that traffic from your current network is cheaper and therefor enables cap-less ISP services but I think it's nieve to believe these ISPs don't intend to control as much of your purchase and viewing activity as possible. Cable companies do this now with traditional cable and telephony services and it makes them a fortune. Any ISP owner worth their salt would always prefer to have an unfair advantage instead of an even playing field. Capping your competition is an unfair advantage and too good to pass up if legal. First it's the direct media (movies, music, etc), then it could be gaming networks, VOIP services, cloud file storage and so on. It's entirely conceivable that we would be financially forced to use the lower quality services of an individual ISP instead of a higher quality alternative. Then the real competition would be ISPs fighting over physical turf while online services look to parter with those ISPs instead of focusing on innovative products.
- eoinmcc 15y agoThis has been happening in Australia for a little while now. 2 of the biggest providers have struck deals with all sorts content providers (IPTV, music, etc) to provide unmetered access. Most people see this as a good thing (data caps are pretty high here, reasonably priced for 100GB/month), but as more and more content starts coming via the internet, 100GB won't last very long. Here are the 2 "freezone" or unmetered offerings by bigpond and iinet in Australia http://www.bigpond.com/unmetered/ http://www.bigpond.com/unmetered/ http://freezone.iinet.net.au/ http://freezone.iinet.net.au/ (Freezone Partners at the bottom). Very clever..
- smutticus 15y agoHow is this not a violation of Sherman anit-trust legislation? Sometimes metaphors for the internet/cyber world don't map well to real worl past examples. But this instance aligns very well to Standard Oil's transport rebates for their own oil. Oil is to content as railroads are to networks. IANAL but until the US starts enforcing anti-trust legislation this kind of thing will continue to happen. Net neutrality doesn't stand a chance against these kinds of behemoth ISPs and their lobbyists.
- joshwa 15y agoBecause they're in Canada.