8 ms·

The new Comcast Xbox Xfinity app is the first nail in net neutrality’s coffin

192 points by SkippyZA 15y ago

joaorj 15y ago
That's ok. Those kind of things only happen there in the US. In Europe we have and will have internet like it is supposed to be. No bandwidth limits at all!
- schraeds 15y ago
  You realize most of Europe is America's pawn right? Only a few countries resist the temptations and pressures of their US/Global overlords. Anyways, Good luck with that additude. What happens in America echoes across the globe. Laugh while we fight our fight, who do you think is next??
- giulianob 15y ago
  Bandwidth limits are fine. The problem is when they calculate bandwidth prices based on what you are using it for. It would be like the phone company saying "Want to talk to your family members? Well that costs 10c per minute but talking to your friends is only 5c per minute." What the consumer pays for the bandwidth should be based on the actual cost the ISP incurs for that bandwidth and not on the value the customer is getting. That's none of the ISPs business.
  - JumpCrisscross 15y ago
    >It would be like the phone company saying 'Want to talk to your family members? Well that costs 10c per minute but talking to your friends is only 5c per minute.' You mean like wireless carriers making in-network calls free? Or Skype making in-network calls free? >What the consumer pays for the bandwidth should be based on the actual cost the ISP incurs for that bandwidth and not on the value the customer is getting This is based on the costs the carrier incurs - it costs more to transport traffic through a NAP and across another carrier's network than it does through one's own [1]. Preferring cost-based-pricing, i.e. fixed margin, versus value-based-pricing says carriers are a utility. The wording used implies cost-plus pricing (which has it's own boat of troubles - witness NASA contractor costs versus SpaceX [2]) is inherently superior to market pricing. [1] http://blog.teracomtraining.com/how-isps-connect-to-the-internet-peering-vs-transit http://blog.teracomtraining.com/how-isps-connect-to-the-inte... [2] http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/05/31/nasa-analysis-falcon-9-cheaper-traditional-approach/ http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/05/31/nasa-analysis-falcon-...
    - giulianob 15y ago
      You make good points.
  - Adirael 15y ago
    It's more like the phone company saying "calls to landlines are free, calls to X ISP cost 10c, to Y ISP they cost 30c."
guelo 15y ago
Our government's failure to enact network neutrality is the latest sign that it is completely driven by corporate interests and will work against society's overall interest when there is a conflict. The only way to get any true democracy anymore is by creating mass panic as with SOPA, but it isn't possible to achieve that with every issue, and corporations are tirelessly relentless. I believe that without a functioning government this superpower is in a period of decline which will be characterized by increased authoritarianism and chaos as we go from crisis to crisis.
- spindritf 15y ago
  Enacting network neutrality rules now sounds a lot like premature optimization. Is anyone really putting up any barriers? There's some haggling over prices, some inefficient routes due to ISP tendency to keep traffic within their network, sure, but that doesn't sound like a convincing argument for government intervention with its own (serious) inefficiencies and heavy handedness.
- JumpCrisscross 15y ago
  Game of Thrones on Xbox not counting towards data cap -> government failure -> chaos, crisis, and collapse of the present world order
  - guelo 15y ago
    That's funny, but I'm not basing my comment on only this one event.
- spoiledtechie 15y ago
  If your really interested in doing something about it, I would suggest taking a look at http://rootstrikers.org/ http://rootstrikers.org/ And without a second lost, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc That video has changed my point of view on the entire subject and has allowed me to start striking at the root.
- driverdan 15y ago
  Net neutrality isn't the issue, it's a symptom. The problem is government mandated monopolies. Eliminate monopolies, let the free market work, and net neutrality will no longer be an issue.
conradev 15y ago
FiOS already does this, in a way. I recently switched to Verizon FiOS for TV, which necessitated the installation of a FiOS branded Actiontec router, so that the cable boxes can access the Internet over MoCA. The router has QoS rules to prioritize VOD traffic over all other traffic (which is why I purchased an Ethernet to MoCA bridge, so I can use my own router).
- jsz0 15y ago
  AT&T U-Verse also works in a similar way. One pipe carries data and video services. The circuit is provisioned to accommodate video services. AT&T could technically offer faster packages to customers who did not use U-Verse video service. It's very difficult to micro-manage how providers want to utilize their network bandwidth especially when we're looking at services that do not transverse the public Internet.
- smhinsey 15y ago
  There is actually a similar FiOS xbox app as well. I am not familiar enough to say if it gets preferential treatment on the network, but you can stream a subset of live TV channels and use it as an alternative to the cable box, although I don't think it has had enough polish to inspire a full time switch.
omellet 15y ago
There are already quite a few nails in that coffin, unfortunately.
spindritf 15y ago
Maybe it's different here in Poland, where ISPs really have next to nothing to offer except for Internet access and maybe some VoIP services, but the whole discussion around net neutrality sounds panicky to me. Using your ISP's services is obviously technically easier and cheaper for them so why wouldn't/shouldn't it be reflected in prices? Maybe we'll reach a point when consumer connections start to be billed like business ones are now (95th percentile, or whatever) but I don't think there's anything wrong with pricing that better reflects real usage. It may turn out to be a little more expensive for some of us, here on HN in particular, but if we want a better Internet infrastructure, we'll have to pay for it because AFAIR ISPs' ROIs aren't particularly impressive.
- victork2 15y ago
  In the long run not preserving net neutrality will give a competitive advantages to the big companies. Let's imagine that Microsoft does a lot of lobbying with Comcast and they manage to make Bing Videos not count as part of your network cap whereas Youtube will be limited. Who do you think users that want to preserve their caps will turn to? Now imagine that the same scenario with Google vs a small company that does search with a totally revolutionary technology. Same thing, Google lobbies a lot and they come to an agreement and they add 1000 ms to every request that is not made to Google Search. Again, who do you think will win? Net neutrality is the safeguard of many things but for entrepreneurs it guarantees they get the same treatment as big companies. In other words what matters most is the quality of your product and not the ties you have with ISP. It works and guarantee pretty much the same thing as the antitrust laws. Fair competition is a huge source of wealth but requires constant care. My leitmotif is always: Think about the [negative] externalities!
  - spindritf 15y ago
    > Let's imagine that Microsoft does a lot of lobbying with Comcast and they manage to make Bing Videos not count as part of your network cap whereas Youtube will be limited. OK, let's imagine MS actually puts their servers in Comast's closets or arranges for some sort of direct connection(s) and it becomes cheaper for Comcast to serve Microsoft's content, now hosted on Comcast's own network or topographically close by. Should Comcast not be allowed to pass (some of) those savings to their customers just because a smaller company couldn't afford to keep their servers with multiple providers?
roboneal 15y ago
Comcast claims that the app turns the XBox into essentially a set top box and that all data is streamed over Comcast's "private" network capacity and do not use any of the traditional public facing internet infrastructure. Standard usage of "On Demand" programming from a DVR or other set top box do not count against the existing data cap quotas. If this app essentially allows an XBox to plug into this private network capacity like any other set top box, I think this is an important distinction.
- ajross 15y ago
  It pains me deeply to agree, but this is pretty much right. Comcast is, after all, a company founded on building a private (analog) network over which it delivers paid content to its subscribers. No one cared about "net neutrality" when they were trenching the cable in the 1980's. The fact that this private content is being delivered over an IP network shared with its "public" internet service changes things a little, but not enough I suspect. Which brings up the question: what does net neutrality mean for the last-mile ISP? It seems not a lot. It ensures equal treatment of sites on the public internet, but if a Microsoft or whoever wants to pay for "premium" service over a private network, they'll always be able to.
  - Drbble 15y ago
    Are you aware that Comcast's network was built as a joint venture with local governments with special easements to access underground public and private property, and is therefore a regulated monopoly, not a private enterprise? I didn't give Comcast the right to dig under my house for nothing.
- nextstep 15y ago
  I think you are right, and when they frame this new service as "turning your existing Xbox into a set top box", it sounds benign and rational. But I'm afraid of the dangerous precedent that this sets. TV-style subscription-based services work with users as consumers: the pipes go one-way, because each subscriber is just a dumb set of eyes with a wallet. But with the internet, and new disruptive content models, everyone is also a creator. The real danger of losing net-neutrality is that individuals will become unable create new media for the internet.
parrots 15y ago
I think the nail in net neutrality's coffin will be when they start charging (or discounting) other parties' services. That isn't the case here. The way I see it you get all their content through a cable box today without paying data usage fees for the bandwidth TV uses on their network (that's the point of the TV subscription fee). Now they're allowing that content on another "set-top box", in this case the XBox. The implementation details (the fact it uses internet streaming vs cable tuner card) shouldn't matter to the end-user. You pay the TV subscription fee, you get it without additional fees. If the situation were reversed and they were charging data fees for accessing content you already pay for, we'd be up in arms about that, too...
- Klinky 15y ago
  The XBox is not another set-top box though. It does not use the same network as their other boxes, it uses the customer's internet connection. The internet connection is capped at 250GB. If they are going to cap other services using the customers internet connection, they need to cap their own as well. Anything else is hypocritical & anti-competitive.
symbiotic 15y ago
I might be wrong but hasn't the Kindle been offering a free internet access to browse its store and even some online content for a while now?
- TylerE 15y ago
  It's "free" in the sense that it's not a subscription. Not free in the sense that Amazon pays the provider (AT&T in the US) to provide the access, the costs for which are rolled into the business model -> Amazon's fees from the publisher -> Content prices. So you end up paying for it in the end, since say, $0.05 of every dollar (totally made up figure) ends up going to AT&T. So, to coin a somewhat wordy phrase, it's free-as-in-jet-fuel-when-you-buy-a-plane-ticket.
JumpCrisscross 15y ago
This mangles two issues - discriminating based on source versus path. Source discrimination is bad. The Internet allows applications and services to run “at the edge” of the network and not centrally; this encourages innovation [1]. Path discrimination is more complicated. Many content providers already pay private networks to transport their traffic on faster than the public internet [2]. There is even a market for traders paying tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars for low latency connections [3]. Given that ISPs charge each other for transporting traffic [4] it costs more to broker traffic across others' networks versus its own. It doesn't seem unfair for the ISP to charge less for the latter. This would allow Comcast et al to compete with the Akamais and Level3s that irk them today [5]. Sooner or later they will find it makes more sense to offer the discount for same-network traffic to everyone. Comcast has made shitty statements about net neutrality before [1]. But it's not okay to vilify anything Comcast says by virtue of it being said by Comcast - that's straight up ad hominem. [1] http://www.stern.nyu.edu/networks/Economides_Net_Neutrality.pdf http://www.stern.nyu.edu/networks/Economides_Net_Neutrality.... [2] http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/11/level-3-lands-netflix-streaming-business-will-double-its-storage-capability/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/11/level-3-lands-netflix-strea... [3] http://www.highfrequencytraders.com/article/682/options-it-optimizes-chicago-new-york-trading-latency http://www.highfrequencytraders.com/article/682/options-it-o... [4] http://blog.teracomtraining.com/how-isps-connect-to-the-internet-peering-vs-transit http://blog.teracomtraining.com/how-isps-connect-to-the-inte... [5] http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3.html http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3....
- megaman821 15y ago
  Level 3 was offering to transport the data all the way to Comcast's "internal" network and willing to pay for the equipment required for the high-speed interconnect. How can Comcast complain about not having enough bandwidth for delivery in their last mile (or least need compensation to build out more bandwidth), but then turn around and offer a very similar service and not even have it count against their bandwidth caps? Is there a bandwidth issue in their internal network or not? I doubt Comcast put in data caps because of interconnect costs. I would love to see what a gig of interconnect data costs them.
Atomus 15y ago
A good book to read is Tim Wu's "The Master Switch", which predicts this as something called The Cycle. Reading the book gives you a sense how history repeats itself with new and open technology and how these open systems eventually get molded into closed systems that only a few companies control. It's been done with telephones, the radio and television. It seems the internet is in the early stages of this transistion. What Comcast is doing is testing the waters. I personally find it just the beginning, as if this is allowed, other companies will follow suit.
pasbesoin 15y ago
Here are a couple of questions to consider: Does Comcast allow a user to purchase additional bandwidth beyond their 250 GB cap? If so, how much does that cost? It's not just a cap, it's a hard limit. If you want more, you are forced to go with the ISP's own "blessed" option. This is a significant portion of what bothers me with these caps. They are not graduated in a reasonable fashion. Instead, they are a cliff -- either entirely, or through absurdly high "addtional bandwidth" costs, limiting the service that the user can receive. THEN, the ISP comes along and offers the user a sole way around/past this limit: Purchase whatever subset(s) of the additional service exclusively via the ISP's "value-added" content. (You can only have more bits if you buy your movies (well, movie viewings) from us.) THAT, my friends, is a monopoly. Especially when you only have one or two ISP options, and they're all doing it. (Again, to you overseas, this is the case for much of the U.S.)
- zschallz 15y ago
  As of right now, the 250GB cap is a soft cap. Going over only risks that after the second warning Comcast will cancel your service and ban you for a year. There are no "blessed" options unless you are a business subscriber.
  - pasbesoin 15y ago
    Purchasing your movie/video viewing from Comcast is the "blessed" option. And a "soft cap" is a hard cap, if you regularly want/need more than the cap. P.S. I agree that I may have "waffled" a bit with respect to the option to switch to business class service. However, I understand that business class service is not available in all areas, can itself be a significant price bump (i.e. not an incrementally reasonable amount for incrementally more bandwidth), and requires different equipment and an on-site installation visit -- also at significant cost. (I don't have it, though, so correct me if I'm wrong.) P.P.S. On the other hand, I have considered their business class product to be an option if and when I need it. At least some sort of higher capacity option. Let's hope they don't take it away, e.g. from residential locations.
- pdubs 15y ago
  What I love is their statements that "only 1%" of users are affected by the cap. If "only 1%" of your end-users have the ability to disrupt your network, there's something seriously wrong with your network. That, and the 250GB cap hasn't changed since 2008. In the meantime I can now fit 250GB into less than 1 cubic cm for around $150.
unreal37 15y ago
I don't understand the outrage here. Comcast is offering something for free to its customers that other ISP's customers have to pay for. It's good to be a Comcast customer I guess. A lot of the arguments in the article and even some in this comment thread are "imagine if"... Either something is wrong on its face or its not. You shouldn't have to come up with theoretical examples of Comcast charging for unlimited access to Youtube and Netflix in order to make your point. My cell phone service by the way (Bell Mobility) offers free unlimited access to Twitter, Facebook and Myspace that don't count against my mobile data plan cap. If you consider that against net neutrality, then net neutrality died a long time ago.
- gioele 15y ago
  > My cell phone service by the way (Bell Mobility) offers free unlimited access to Twitter, Facebook and Myspace that don't count against my mobile data plan cap. If you consider that against net neutrality, then net neutrality died a long time ago. How isn't this against Net neutrality? Suppose you run a service that competes against Twitter. With Net neutrality you must prove to the users that your service is better thatn Twitter. Without Net neutrality you must prove to your users that your service is so much better than Twitter that it is worth to pay additional money to the phone company to use it. Or you can pay the phone company to add your service to the number of non-data-cap-eating websites. In the end the phone company is paid twice: a first time by the users and another time by the websites.
  - unreal37 15y ago
    I'm assuming Facebook, Twitter and Myspace are not paying Bell Mobility anything for this. Essentially, Bell is offering it to customers as a carrot to sign up with them. "We don't charge you for social networking, which we know you will use every day!" sounds catchy to a lot of people.
    - gioele 15y ago
      > I'm assuming Facebook, Twitter and Myspace are not paying Bell Mobility It is quite likely that they are, see the nice error message you get from http://0.facebook.com http://0.facebook.com . I suppose the deal requires Facebook to pay ISPs; the ISPs are free to offer free access to any site whenever they want and I doubt they are really after a text-only interface. But this is not the point. The main problem is that all the Facebook competitors will have to pay if they do not want to be relegated in the I-have-to-pay-for-it separate internet.
IanDrake 15y ago
Net Neutrality legislation scares me. Any legislation of the internet to "protect" you from corporations will most likely include new and invasive powers of government to monitor and control the Internet (like SOPA). No thanks. Let's see if I understand this article though: I can pay $$$$ dollars a month for 250GB of dumb data transfer a month. If I go over that quota, I have to pay $$$ more or I get shut off or slowed down. But now Comcast allows me to pay $ to get an unlimited access to certain sites like NetFlix that would otherwise eat up most my "dumb" quota (if I watched movies all day). That sounds good to me, I'd rather pay $$$$+$ than $$$$+$$$ for the 400GB of NetFlix traffic and 100GB of other traffic I use per month. In a way, this is the market's solution to the piracy problem. Licensed media sources are offered at a discount while torrent traffic is still allowed, but under general traffic prices. Say what you will but, if the market doesn't create a solution, the government will and I guarantee you won't like their solution.
- icebraining 15y ago
  That sounds good to me, I'd rather pay $$$$+$ than $$$$+$$$ for the 400GB of NetFlix traffic and 100GB of other traffic I use per month. Sorry, but that's a shortsighted view. You're now glad that you only pay +$, but a year from now you could be paying +$/4 if only the competition hadn't been crushed by these deals.
  - IanDrake 15y ago
    >competition hadn't been crushed by these deals. I assume you mean NetFlix's competition. I can see your point there. In a perfect world, as a consumer I would have a choice of ISPs. I wonder if this will become an antitrust issue: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/06/business/how-coke-pushed-rivals-off-the-shelf.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm http://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/06/business/how-coke-pushed-r...
gioele 15y ago
I do not like this trend, but my fears is that Wikipedia is being used in a similar way. You can argue against free XBox traffic, but can you argue against free Wikipedia traffic? Past HN topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3505922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3505922
recoiledsnake 15y ago
>Comcast’s FAQ strongly implies that Microsoft is compensating it in some fashion for the new service; the document states several times that the Xfinity app is only available to those with an Xbox Live Gold subscription >For companies like Comcast, which has railed against the concept of being a dumb pipe, Microsoft’s decision to pay it for free access for Xbox Gold users is a major coup. Why does the article take as a given that Microsoft is paying Comcast? What if the arrangement is that MS gets more value added to XBox Live Gold subscriptions and Comcast gets more value added to it's TV service? Now this may not be the case, but doesn't seem any less likely than the article's assertions given what we know.
codgercoder 15y ago
This was an inevitable outcome of deregulating monopolies, refusing to recognize antitrust violations, and it's not the last shoe to drop.
doki_pen 15y ago
This announcement is contrary to a statement made in July of 2011. Do they suddenly not give a shit about other customers service if it's xbox live traffic? "If someone's behavior is such that it degrades the quality of service for others nearby -- that's what this threshold is meant to address," said company spokesman Charlie Douglas. "It can negatively affect other people." http://hothardware.com/News/Comcast-Cuts-Customer-Off/ http://hothardware.com/News/Comcast-Cuts-Customer-Off/
ricardobeat 15y ago
You can see the danger of this right here in the comments. Everyone is fine with it depending on the way it's presented. Imagine that suddenly your smaller, lesser-known favorite sites are all bandwidth limited. There are just a couple hundred sanctioned ones that you get "for free". Small endeavours like Reddit or HN don't have a chance to grow fast anymore. That's the future if you are ok with this.
jsz0 15y ago
About 90-95% of the bandwidth available 'on the wire' is already being used to deliver Comcast's video service. So if this is the first nail it's been there for an awful long time. The way traditional VOD is delivered (QAMS full of MPEG2 programs) is actually very inefficient. There may be 4-8 QAMS just sitting there inactive if your neighbors aren't watching VOD. The switch to IP delivery eventually will allow Comcast and other MSOs to use their bandwidth more efficiently. From the customer's perspective nothing really changes. Technically your modem will probably be provisioned differently to support the extra services. So for example if you buy a 50Mbit/sec Internet package and a video package from Comcast your modem would actually be provisioned with multiple service flows -- a 50Mbit/sec for Internet traffic and another 50Mbit/sec reserved for Comcast services. That second 50Mbit/sec service flow allows you to have the same video service functionality as the 2-3Gbit/sec of broadcast video they presently waste 90-95% of their spectrum on. This will be reclaimed for the big general-purpose IP data pipe. Comcast will continue to use some percentage of that pipe for their own services but it will be a much smaller percentage than they use today. So really everyone wins in the end. IP set tops are cheaper than traditional cable set tops. Consumers get to use Comcast services integrated into devices they already own. Comcast's competitors get a bigger dumb-pipe into people's homes to ride on. I admit it looks bad if you don't understand the technology but it's important to remember the bandwidth crunch that Comcast and other MSOs have is directly related to how they presently deliver their own services. Any effort they make to solve that problem is good for consumers in the end.
Pwnsauce 15y ago
Just another point of the Xfinity app's disregard to Net Neutrality is the sensing of "viewership". By "viewership" I mean switching video inputs and finding a nice network error upon returning to xfinity app's input. This was tested yesterday with an HD enabled Samsung and 1st gen Xbox360. I imagine this is just a preview of what is to come when Kinect enabled commercials stop entirely if you are not physically looking at the tv and restart the video so, you have to view in full in order to progress. Can you imagine starbucks making you have to watch a commercial before you drink your macchiato?!

192 points by SkippyZA 15y ago

That's ok. Those kind of things only happen there in the US. In Europe we have and will have internet like it is supposed to be. No bandwidth limits at all!

schraeds 15y ago
You realize most of Europe is America's pawn right? Only a few countries resist the temptations and pressures of their US/Global overlords. Anyways, Good luck with that additude. What happens in America echoes across the globe. Laugh while we fight our fight, who do you think is next??
giulianob 15y ago
Bandwidth limits are fine. The problem is when they calculate bandwidth prices based on what you are using it for. It would be like the phone company saying "Want to talk to your family members? Well that costs 10c per minute but talking to your friends is only 5c per minute." What the consumer pays for the bandwidth should be based on the actual cost the ISP incurs for that bandwidth and not on the value the customer is getting. That's none of the ISPs business.
- JumpCrisscross 15y ago
  >It would be like the phone company saying 'Want to talk to your family members? Well that costs 10c per minute but talking to your friends is only 5c per minute.' You mean like wireless carriers making in-network calls free? Or Skype making in-network calls free? >What the consumer pays for the bandwidth should be based on the actual cost the ISP incurs for that bandwidth and not on the value the customer is getting This is based on the costs the carrier incurs - it costs more to transport traffic through a NAP and across another carrier's network than it does through one's own [1]. Preferring cost-based-pricing, i.e. fixed margin, versus value-based-pricing says carriers are a utility. The wording used implies cost-plus pricing (which has it's own boat of troubles - witness NASA contractor costs versus SpaceX [2]) is inherently superior to market pricing. [1] http://blog.teracomtraining.com/how-isps-connect-to-the-internet-peering-vs-transit http://blog.teracomtraining.com/how-isps-connect-to-the-inte... [2] http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/05/31/nasa-analysis-falcon-9-cheaper-traditional-approach/ http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/05/31/nasa-analysis-falcon-...
  - giulianob 15y ago
    You make good points.
- Adirael 15y ago
  It's more like the phone company saying "calls to landlines are free, calls to X ISP cost 10c, to Y ISP they cost 30c."

guelo 15y ago

Our government's failure to enact network neutrality is the latest sign that it is completely driven by corporate interests and will work against society's overall interest when there is a conflict. The only way to get any true democracy anymore is by creating mass panic as with SOPA, but it isn't possible to achieve that with every issue, and corporations are tirelessly relentless. I believe that without a functioning government this superpower is in a period of decline which will be characterized by increased authoritarianism and chaos as we go from crisis to crisis.

spindritf 15y ago
Enacting network neutrality rules now sounds a lot like premature optimization. Is anyone really putting up any barriers? There's some haggling over prices, some inefficient routes due to ISP tendency to keep traffic within their network, sure, but that doesn't sound like a convincing argument for government intervention with its own (serious) inefficiencies and heavy handedness.
JumpCrisscross 15y ago
Game of Thrones on Xbox not counting towards data cap -> government failure -> chaos, crisis, and collapse of the present world order
- guelo 15y ago
  That's funny, but I'm not basing my comment on only this one event.
spoiledtechie 15y ago
If your really interested in doing something about it, I would suggest taking a look at http://rootstrikers.org/ http://rootstrikers.org/ And without a second lost, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc That video has changed my point of view on the entire subject and has allowed me to start striking at the root.
driverdan 15y ago
Net neutrality isn't the issue, it's a symptom. The problem is government mandated monopolies. Eliminate monopolies, let the free market work, and net neutrality will no longer be an issue.

conradev 15y ago

FiOS already does this, in a way. I recently switched to Verizon FiOS for TV, which necessitated the installation of a FiOS branded Actiontec router, so that the cable boxes can access the Internet over MoCA. The router has QoS rules to prioritize VOD traffic over all other traffic (which is why I purchased an Ethernet to MoCA bridge, so I can use my own router).

jsz0 15y ago
AT&T U-Verse also works in a similar way. One pipe carries data and video services. The circuit is provisioned to accommodate video services. AT&T could technically offer faster packages to customers who did not use U-Verse video service. It's very difficult to micro-manage how providers want to utilize their network bandwidth especially when we're looking at services that do not transverse the public Internet.
smhinsey 15y ago
There is actually a similar FiOS xbox app as well. I am not familiar enough to say if it gets preferential treatment on the network, but you can stream a subset of live TV channels and use it as an alternative to the cable box, although I don't think it has had enough polish to inspire a full time switch.

omellet 15y ago

There are already quite a few nails in that coffin, unfortunately.

spindritf 15y ago

Maybe it's different here in Poland, where ISPs really have next to nothing to offer except for Internet access and maybe some VoIP services, but the whole discussion around net neutrality sounds panicky to me. Using your ISP's services is obviously technically easier and cheaper for them so why wouldn't/shouldn't it be reflected in prices? Maybe we'll reach a point when consumer connections start to be billed like business ones are now (95th percentile, or whatever) but I don't think there's anything wrong with pricing that better reflects real usage. It may turn out to be a little more expensive for some of us, here on HN in particular, but if we want a better Internet infrastructure, we'll have to pay for it because AFAIR ISPs' ROIs aren't particularly impressive.

victork2 15y ago
In the long run not preserving net neutrality will give a competitive advantages to the big companies. Let's imagine that Microsoft does a lot of lobbying with Comcast and they manage to make Bing Videos not count as part of your network cap whereas Youtube will be limited. Who do you think users that want to preserve their caps will turn to? Now imagine that the same scenario with Google vs a small company that does search with a totally revolutionary technology. Same thing, Google lobbies a lot and they come to an agreement and they add 1000 ms to every request that is not made to Google Search. Again, who do you think will win? Net neutrality is the safeguard of many things but for entrepreneurs it guarantees they get the same treatment as big companies. In other words what matters most is the quality of your product and not the ties you have with ISP. It works and guarantee pretty much the same thing as the antitrust laws. Fair competition is a huge source of wealth but requires constant care. My leitmotif is always: Think about the [negative] externalities!
- spindritf 15y ago
  > Let's imagine that Microsoft does a lot of lobbying with Comcast and they manage to make Bing Videos not count as part of your network cap whereas Youtube will be limited. OK, let's imagine MS actually puts their servers in Comast's closets or arranges for some sort of direct connection(s) and it becomes cheaper for Comcast to serve Microsoft's content, now hosted on Comcast's own network or topographically close by. Should Comcast not be allowed to pass (some of) those savings to their customers just because a smaller company couldn't afford to keep their servers with multiple providers?

roboneal 15y ago

Comcast claims that the app turns the XBox into essentially a set top box and that all data is streamed over Comcast's "private" network capacity and do not use any of the traditional public facing internet infrastructure. Standard usage of "On Demand" programming from a DVR or other set top box do not count against the existing data cap quotas. If this app essentially allows an XBox to plug into this private network capacity like any other set top box, I think this is an important distinction.

ajross 15y ago
It pains me deeply to agree, but this is pretty much right. Comcast is, after all, a company founded on building a private (analog) network over which it delivers paid content to its subscribers. No one cared about "net neutrality" when they were trenching the cable in the 1980's. The fact that this private content is being delivered over an IP network shared with its "public" internet service changes things a little, but not enough I suspect. Which brings up the question: what does net neutrality mean for the last-mile ISP? It seems not a lot. It ensures equal treatment of sites on the public internet, but if a Microsoft or whoever wants to pay for "premium" service over a private network, they'll always be able to.
- Drbble 15y ago
  Are you aware that Comcast's network was built as a joint venture with local governments with special easements to access underground public and private property, and is therefore a regulated monopoly, not a private enterprise? I didn't give Comcast the right to dig under my house for nothing.
nextstep 15y ago
I think you are right, and when they frame this new service as "turning your existing Xbox into a set top box", it sounds benign and rational. But I'm afraid of the dangerous precedent that this sets. TV-style subscription-based services work with users as consumers: the pipes go one-way, because each subscriber is just a dumb set of eyes with a wallet. But with the internet, and new disruptive content models, everyone is also a creator. The real danger of losing net-neutrality is that individuals will become unable create new media for the internet.

parrots 15y ago

I think the nail in net neutrality's coffin will be when they start charging (or discounting) other parties' services. That isn't the case here. The way I see it you get all their content through a cable box today without paying data usage fees for the bandwidth TV uses on their network (that's the point of the TV subscription fee). Now they're allowing that content on another "set-top box", in this case the XBox. The implementation details (the fact it uses internet streaming vs cable tuner card) shouldn't matter to the end-user. You pay the TV subscription fee, you get it without additional fees. If the situation were reversed and they were charging data fees for accessing content you already pay for, we'd be up in arms about that, too...

Klinky 15y ago
The XBox is not another set-top box though. It does not use the same network as their other boxes, it uses the customer's internet connection. The internet connection is capped at 250GB. If they are going to cap other services using the customers internet connection, they need to cap their own as well. Anything else is hypocritical & anti-competitive.

symbiotic 15y ago

I might be wrong but hasn't the Kindle been offering a free internet access to browse its store and even some online content for a while now?

TylerE 15y ago
It's "free" in the sense that it's not a subscription. Not free in the sense that Amazon pays the provider (AT&T in the US) to provide the access, the costs for which are rolled into the business model -> Amazon's fees from the publisher -> Content prices. So you end up paying for it in the end, since say, $0.05 of every dollar (totally made up figure) ends up going to AT&T. So, to coin a somewhat wordy phrase, it's free-as-in-jet-fuel-when-you-buy-a-plane-ticket.

JumpCrisscross 15y ago

This mangles two issues - discriminating based on source versus path. Source discrimination is bad. The Internet allows applications and services to run “at the edge” of the network and not centrally; this encourages innovation [1]. Path discrimination is more complicated. Many content providers already pay private networks to transport their traffic on faster than the public internet [2]. There is even a market for traders paying tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars for low latency connections [3]. Given that ISPs charge each other for transporting traffic [4] it costs more to broker traffic across others' networks versus its own. It doesn't seem unfair for the ISP to charge less for the latter. This would allow Comcast et al to compete with the Akamais and Level3s that irk them today [5]. Sooner or later they will find it makes more sense to offer the discount for same-network traffic to everyone. Comcast has made shitty statements about net neutrality before [1]. But it's not okay to vilify anything Comcast says by virtue of it being said by Comcast - that's straight up ad hominem. [1] http://www.stern.nyu.edu/networks/Economides_Net_Neutrality.pdf http://www.stern.nyu.edu/networks/Economides_Net_Neutrality.... [2] http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/11/level-3-lands-netflix-streaming-business-will-double-its-storage-capability/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/11/level-3-lands-netflix-strea... [3] http://www.highfrequencytraders.com/article/682/options-it-optimizes-chicago-new-york-trading-latency http://www.highfrequencytraders.com/article/682/options-it-o... [4] http://blog.teracomtraining.com/how-isps-connect-to-the-internet-peering-vs-transit http://blog.teracomtraining.com/how-isps-connect-to-the-inte... [5] http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3.html http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3....

megaman821 15y ago
Level 3 was offering to transport the data all the way to Comcast's "internal" network and willing to pay for the equipment required for the high-speed interconnect. How can Comcast complain about not having enough bandwidth for delivery in their last mile (or least need compensation to build out more bandwidth), but then turn around and offer a very similar service and not even have it count against their bandwidth caps? Is there a bandwidth issue in their internal network or not? I doubt Comcast put in data caps because of interconnect costs. I would love to see what a gig of interconnect data costs them.

Atomus 15y ago

A good book to read is Tim Wu's "The Master Switch", which predicts this as something called The Cycle. Reading the book gives you a sense how history repeats itself with new and open technology and how these open systems eventually get molded into closed systems that only a few companies control. It's been done with telephones, the radio and television. It seems the internet is in the early stages of this transistion. What Comcast is doing is testing the waters. I personally find it just the beginning, as if this is allowed, other companies will follow suit.

pasbesoin 15y ago

Here are a couple of questions to consider: Does Comcast allow a user to purchase additional bandwidth beyond their 250 GB cap? If so, how much does that cost? It's not just a cap, it's a hard limit. If you want more, you are forced to go with the ISP's own "blessed" option. This is a significant portion of what bothers me with these caps. They are not graduated in a reasonable fashion. Instead, they are a cliff -- either entirely, or through absurdly high "addtional bandwidth" costs, limiting the service that the user can receive. THEN, the ISP comes along and offers the user a sole way around/past this limit: Purchase whatever subset(s) of the additional service exclusively via the ISP's "value-added" content. (You can only have more bits if you buy your movies (well, movie viewings) from us.) THAT, my friends, is a monopoly. Especially when you only have one or two ISP options, and they're all doing it. (Again, to you overseas, this is the case for much of the U.S.)

zschallz 15y ago
As of right now, the 250GB cap is a soft cap. Going over only risks that after the second warning Comcast will cancel your service and ban you for a year. There are no "blessed" options unless you are a business subscriber.
- pasbesoin 15y ago
  Purchasing your movie/video viewing from Comcast is the "blessed" option. And a "soft cap" is a hard cap, if you regularly want/need more than the cap. P.S. I agree that I may have "waffled" a bit with respect to the option to switch to business class service. However, I understand that business class service is not available in all areas, can itself be a significant price bump (i.e. not an incrementally reasonable amount for incrementally more bandwidth), and requires different equipment and an on-site installation visit -- also at significant cost. (I don't have it, though, so correct me if I'm wrong.) P.P.S. On the other hand, I have considered their business class product to be an option if and when I need it. At least some sort of higher capacity option. Let's hope they don't take it away, e.g. from residential locations.
pdubs 15y ago
What I love is their statements that "only 1%" of users are affected by the cap. If "only 1%" of your end-users have the ability to disrupt your network, there's something seriously wrong with your network. That, and the 250GB cap hasn't changed since 2008. In the meantime I can now fit 250GB into less than 1 cubic cm for around $150.

unreal37 15y ago

I don't understand the outrage here. Comcast is offering something for free to its customers that other ISP's customers have to pay for. It's good to be a Comcast customer I guess. A lot of the arguments in the article and even some in this comment thread are "imagine if"... Either something is wrong on its face or its not. You shouldn't have to come up with theoretical examples of Comcast charging for unlimited access to Youtube and Netflix in order to make your point. My cell phone service by the way (Bell Mobility) offers free unlimited access to Twitter, Facebook and Myspace that don't count against my mobile data plan cap. If you consider that against net neutrality, then net neutrality died a long time ago.

gioele 15y ago
> My cell phone service by the way (Bell Mobility) offers free unlimited access to Twitter, Facebook and Myspace that don't count against my mobile data plan cap. If you consider that against net neutrality, then net neutrality died a long time ago. How isn't this against Net neutrality? Suppose you run a service that competes against Twitter. With Net neutrality you must prove to the users that your service is better thatn Twitter. Without Net neutrality you must prove to your users that your service is so much better than Twitter that it is worth to pay additional money to the phone company to use it. Or you can pay the phone company to add your service to the number of non-data-cap-eating websites. In the end the phone company is paid twice: a first time by the users and another time by the websites.
- unreal37 15y ago
  I'm assuming Facebook, Twitter and Myspace are not paying Bell Mobility anything for this. Essentially, Bell is offering it to customers as a carrot to sign up with them. "We don't charge you for social networking, which we know you will use every day!" sounds catchy to a lot of people.
  - gioele 15y ago
    > I'm assuming Facebook, Twitter and Myspace are not paying Bell Mobility It is quite likely that they are, see the nice error message you get from http://0.facebook.com http://0.facebook.com . I suppose the deal requires Facebook to pay ISPs; the ISPs are free to offer free access to any site whenever they want and I doubt they are really after a text-only interface. But this is not the point. The main problem is that all the Facebook competitors will have to pay if they do not want to be relegated in the I-have-to-pay-for-it separate internet.

IanDrake 15y ago

Net Neutrality legislation scares me. Any legislation of the internet to "protect" you from corporations will most likely include new and invasive powers of government to monitor and control the Internet (like SOPA). No thanks. Let's see if I understand this article though: I can pay $$$$ dollars a month for 250GB of dumb data transfer a month. If I go over that quota, I have to pay $$$ more or I get shut off or slowed down. But now Comcast allows me to pay $ to get an unlimited access to certain sites like NetFlix that would otherwise eat up most my "dumb" quota (if I watched movies all day). That sounds good to me, I'd rather pay $$$$+$ than $$$$+$$$ for the 400GB of NetFlix traffic and 100GB of other traffic I use per month. In a way, this is the market's solution to the piracy problem. Licensed media sources are offered at a discount while torrent traffic is still allowed, but under general traffic prices. Say what you will but, if the market doesn't create a solution, the government will and I guarantee you won't like their solution.

icebraining 15y ago
That sounds good to me, I'd rather pay $$$$+$ than $$$$+$$$ for the 400GB of NetFlix traffic and 100GB of other traffic I use per month. Sorry, but that's a shortsighted view. You're now glad that you only pay +$, but a year from now you could be paying +$/4 if only the competition hadn't been crushed by these deals.
- IanDrake 15y ago
  >competition hadn't been crushed by these deals. I assume you mean NetFlix's competition. I can see your point there. In a perfect world, as a consumer I would have a choice of ISPs. I wonder if this will become an antitrust issue: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/06/business/how-coke-pushed-rivals-off-the-shelf.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm http://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/06/business/how-coke-pushed-r...

gioele 15y ago

I do not like this trend, but my fears is that Wikipedia is being used in a similar way. You can argue against free XBox traffic, but can you argue against free Wikipedia traffic? Past HN topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3505922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3505922

recoiledsnake 15y ago

>Comcast’s FAQ strongly implies that Microsoft is compensating it in some fashion for the new service; the document states several times that the Xfinity app is only available to those with an Xbox Live Gold subscription >For companies like Comcast, which has railed against the concept of being a dumb pipe, Microsoft’s decision to pay it for free access for Xbox Gold users is a major coup. Why does the article take as a given that Microsoft is paying Comcast? What if the arrangement is that MS gets more value added to XBox Live Gold subscriptions and Comcast gets more value added to it's TV service? Now this may not be the case, but doesn't seem any less likely than the article's assertions given what we know.

codgercoder 15y ago

This was an inevitable outcome of deregulating monopolies, refusing to recognize antitrust violations, and it's not the last shoe to drop.

doki_pen 15y ago

This announcement is contrary to a statement made in July of 2011. Do they suddenly not give a shit about other customers service if it's xbox live traffic? "If someone's behavior is such that it degrades the quality of service for others nearby -- that's what this threshold is meant to address," said company spokesman Charlie Douglas. "It can negatively affect other people." http://hothardware.com/News/Comcast-Cuts-Customer-Off/ http://hothardware.com/News/Comcast-Cuts-Customer-Off/

ricardobeat 15y ago

You can see the danger of this right here in the comments. Everyone is fine with it depending on the way it's presented. Imagine that suddenly your smaller, lesser-known favorite sites are all bandwidth limited. There are just a couple hundred sanctioned ones that you get "for free". Small endeavours like Reddit or HN don't have a chance to grow fast anymore. That's the future if you are ok with this.

jsz0 15y ago

About 90-95% of the bandwidth available 'on the wire' is already being used to deliver Comcast's video service. So if this is the first nail it's been there for an awful long time. The way traditional VOD is delivered (QAMS full of MPEG2 programs) is actually very inefficient. There may be 4-8 QAMS just sitting there inactive if your neighbors aren't watching VOD. The switch to IP delivery eventually will allow Comcast and other MSOs to use their bandwidth more efficiently. From the customer's perspective nothing really changes. Technically your modem will probably be provisioned differently to support the extra services. So for example if you buy a 50Mbit/sec Internet package and a video package from Comcast your modem would actually be provisioned with multiple service flows -- a 50Mbit/sec for Internet traffic and another 50Mbit/sec reserved for Comcast services. That second 50Mbit/sec service flow allows you to have the same video service functionality as the 2-3Gbit/sec of broadcast video they presently waste 90-95% of their spectrum on. This will be reclaimed for the big general-purpose IP data pipe. Comcast will continue to use some percentage of that pipe for their own services but it will be a much smaller percentage than they use today. So really everyone wins in the end. IP set tops are cheaper than traditional cable set tops. Consumers get to use Comcast services integrated into devices they already own. Comcast's competitors get a bigger dumb-pipe into people's homes to ride on. I admit it looks bad if you don't understand the technology but it's important to remember the bandwidth crunch that Comcast and other MSOs have is directly related to how they presently deliver their own services. Any effort they make to solve that problem is good for consumers in the end.

Pwnsauce 15y ago

Just another point of the Xfinity app's disregard to Net Neutrality is the sensing of "viewership". By "viewership" I mean switching video inputs and finding a nice network error upon returning to xfinity app's input. This was tested yesterday with an HD enabled Samsung and 1st gen Xbox360. I imagine this is just a preview of what is to come when Kinect enabled commercials stop entirely if you are not physically looking at the tv and restart the video so, you have to view in full in order to progress. Can you imagine starbucks making you have to watch a commercial before you drink your macchiato?!