7 ms·

A Budding War Over Internet Economics

63 points by rpm4321 14y ago

kator 14y ago
The crazy thing is they're debating on Sender-Pays: FTA "The concept—known as “sender pays”—would radically alter today’s Internet economics. Some countries say their networks are groaning under video and other content provided in large part by U.S. companies such as Facebook, Netflix, and Google. These countries suggest that fees on content providers would help defray local infrastructure costs." This is exactly why ITU and other agencies should stay out of the way. They have no clue how the internet works. Content providers do pay Bandwidth fees at their edges. If the networks are having a hard time with this content they should have not signed deals at the edges of their networks that put them in these positions. What they really want is to dig their hands into the deeper pockets of content providers and create a sort of "Tax" to improve their "groaning" networks. What would really happen is they would get the money and continue running their inefficient networks and magically the extra money would just disappear in a flash of "operating expenses".
- fraserharris 14y ago
  More likely is that content providers would pull out of countries that implement "sender pays". The countries that want these taxes are, in general, marginal revenue streams (Africa, Middle East, etc). Note: this may be the goal of the totalitarian regimes all along. They could not be accused of censorship when Twitter, Facebook & the like pull out.
  - caseysoftware 14y ago
    I'd wager that's the goal. Media - music, news, movies - from the West (Western Europe, US) is one of the many things that sparked discontent in Soviet-bloc countries. It countered much of the propaganda put out by the "workers paradises." In more current times, putting out video, images, and information has shed light on atrocities that are going on around the world. Some of it drives people to action. Anything the regimes can do to cut off communications is a win for them.
mylittlepony 14y ago
It was good while it lasted. All I need now is a new entertainment and a new career. See ya everyone, you will always be in my heart.
- ojbyrne 14y ago
  It's the UN. Not the most effective organization on the planet.
JoeAltmaier 14y ago
Can we kickstart an Internet satellite project? Out of the control of any regulatory institution, we could continue 'netting unperturbed. Of course, we'd need a cheap-transceiver-project too. Hm.
- eloisius 14y ago
  http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetplan/ http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetplan/
- gus_massa 14y ago
  Bad idea. The radiocommunication satellites are also regulated by ITU: http://www.itu.int/en/about/Pages/whatwedo.aspx http://www.itu.int/en/about/Pages/whatwedo.aspx . (You don't want two satellites too close using a too similar band for the transmission, so someone has to do the bookkeeping and the dispute resolution. Internet is a totally different problem.)
  - Jach 14y ago
    Isn't the proximity problem only a real issue for geostationary satellites? But in general I agree it's not the best idea; besides a bunch of technical problems it could always get shot down (even if unlikely)... A more realistic scenario would probably be connecting wireless mesh networks and ethernet cable networks (and sometimes fiber cables).
  - JoeAltmaier 14y ago
    Regulated? How? The sky police arrest your satellite? The cool part of space is, its so big. You can really get away with a lot.
    - gus_massa 14y ago
      Plan a) Use an anti-satellite missile to destroy your satellite. Plan b) Use a standard missile to destroy your ground station. I think that the anti-satellite weapons were tested only against decoys. I don't remember a case were there was a rogue satellite and someone destroy it or the owners, but it's very difficult to argue with missile owners. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon
vijayr 14y ago
It's unbelievable that they even want to debate this.
- mtgx 14y ago
  Agreed. There's no need to even debate this. The answer is a resounding no.
  - mhurron 14y ago
    > The answer is a resounding no. To you. Not necessarily to various governments around the world or the telecom companies that provide services they would like to get paid more for. The only reason there is no need to debate is that the ITU will make whatever decision it's members allow it to, giving feedback from outside the ITU is somewhat a pointless action.
motters 14y ago
"Sender pays" is a good way of stopping those pesky citizens from communicating and turning the interwebs into a TV-like experience.
- mtgx 14y ago
  I remember watching a video from 4 Norwegian guys I think, who talked indepth about how "they" want to turn the Internet into a TV experience. It all sounded like a big conspiracy theory (although I found it pretty easy to believe it myself), and now it turns out they were right. They've been preparing to do this for a while now.
j0j0r0 14y ago
trash.
dmix 14y ago
THIS is why the future won't be cool. It's not that the tech won't be cool, it's the never ending attempts for totalitarian control of it.
- Jach 14y ago
  Fortunately technology is advancing far more rapidly than government attempts to stamp on it, and government (or non-government) attempts or not people will find the best deal they can. Such meddling and artificial market pressures may in fact spur innovation, but I wouldn't bet on it. The history of commercial codes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_code_%28communications%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_code_%28communicatio... is an interesting one, though. Charging per length? Send compressed messages. Not compressed enough? Create the theory of compression and compress them even more. Print out shared code books to compress beyond the minimum for a raw message. What would Netflix do if the cost of paying for content transfer over wire suddenly exceeded the cost of other alternatives? They'd probably pursue those alternatives.
  - mtgx 14y ago
    I think the "technology is advancing more rapidly than governments' attempts" works well when the technology allows people the communicate much easier with each other, and then it makes it easy for people to group and create extremely massive protests against such attempts. I think this part works a lot better than what you must be thinking - that we'll keep escaping governments through technical stuff, such as building darknets and whatnot. The problem with that is that while we may succeed in creating such solutions, it still ends up ultimately worse for us. Because now everyone has to become more technical to use these darknets, or to become anonymous, or to share stuff with each other, which will all be much harder than it is now on the Internet. This is why the solution should always be a political one, and not a technical one, because if we lose on the politics side, it means things will get worse for us from a user experience point of view, and it will only be a short-to-medium term solution anyway, until they come after that solution, too. So instead of trying to always be one step ahead through technical means, we should try and stand up for our rights from the beginning, when it's all starting, and make sure that the political solution lasts for decades until they try again. Here's an example. Instead of letting them pass laws that allow for warrantless monitoring of e-mails, which would then mean we'd all have to learn to use encrypted anonymous e-mail messages (which sounds like a pain), we should protest to create a law that demands warrants for that. And that's pretty much what we've achieved with the new ECPA now. While not always possible, the political solution is so much better than the technical one, and we should always strive to solve these problems through politics first.
stock_toaster 14y ago
P5 (I think this is the right term) have veto power in the security council. I dont see this passing any time soon... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_veto_power http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Counc...
- mhurron 14y ago
  Not every resolution or action by the UN goes through the Security Council. If it doesn't have a military angle to it the Security Council has nothing to do with it. This is an action by the ITU, the US's veto power in the Security Council means nothing here.
- gradys 14y ago
  While the P5 (US, UK, France, Russia, and the PRC) have veto power on the Security Council, they don't necessarily have veto power in the body discussed in the article. Theoretically, the Security Council could pass a resolution to stop the lower body from doing this, but that resolution would be subject to P5 veto power. The fact that is most likely to prevent this from being an issue is that the decisions of this ITU body are probably not binding, and the content providers will just ignore them unless governments actually try to enforce this.
  - stock_toaster 14y ago
    Interesting. I thought resolutions from the body at large had to be vetted by the security council before they became 'ratified' by the UN as a whole. Thanks for the clarification.
- nikcub 14y ago
  the ITU has absolutely nothing to do with the UN Security Council edit: the comment below about 'lower body' in the UN (I believe he is referring to the General Assembly) also has nothing to do with the ITU for the ITU to adopt a resolution it needs to be approved by a simple majority of present members (while meeting quorum, which is half of the 172 members). This isn't the first time they have debated silly proposals. previous ideas that didn't pass include requiring all internet users to register, allowing governments to filter the internet and to be able to implement a 'kill switch'. none passed.
wmf 14y ago
I think the other thread has a more interesting discussion going: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4859882 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4859882 (Edit: fixed link)
- Sniffnoy 14y ago
  Is that the link you meant to put? It seems to be unrelated.

63 points by rpm4321 14y ago

kator 14y ago

The crazy thing is they're debating on Sender-Pays: FTA "The concept—known as “sender pays”—would radically alter today’s Internet economics. Some countries say their networks are groaning under video and other content provided in large part by U.S. companies such as Facebook, Netflix, and Google. These countries suggest that fees on content providers would help defray local infrastructure costs." This is exactly why ITU and other agencies should stay out of the way. They have no clue how the internet works. Content providers do pay Bandwidth fees at their edges. If the networks are having a hard time with this content they should have not signed deals at the edges of their networks that put them in these positions. What they really want is to dig their hands into the deeper pockets of content providers and create a sort of "Tax" to improve their "groaning" networks. What would really happen is they would get the money and continue running their inefficient networks and magically the extra money would just disappear in a flash of "operating expenses".

fraserharris 14y ago
More likely is that content providers would pull out of countries that implement "sender pays". The countries that want these taxes are, in general, marginal revenue streams (Africa, Middle East, etc). Note: this may be the goal of the totalitarian regimes all along. They could not be accused of censorship when Twitter, Facebook & the like pull out.
- caseysoftware 14y ago
  I'd wager that's the goal. Media - music, news, movies - from the West (Western Europe, US) is one of the many things that sparked discontent in Soviet-bloc countries. It countered much of the propaganda put out by the "workers paradises." In more current times, putting out video, images, and information has shed light on atrocities that are going on around the world. Some of it drives people to action. Anything the regimes can do to cut off communications is a win for them.

mylittlepony 14y ago

It was good while it lasted. All I need now is a new entertainment and a new career. See ya everyone, you will always be in my heart.

ojbyrne 14y ago
It's the UN. Not the most effective organization on the planet.

JoeAltmaier 14y ago

Can we kickstart an Internet satellite project? Out of the control of any regulatory institution, we could continue 'netting unperturbed. Of course, we'd need a cheap-transceiver-project too. Hm.

eloisius 14y ago
http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetplan/ http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetplan/
gus_massa 14y ago
Bad idea. The radiocommunication satellites are also regulated by ITU: http://www.itu.int/en/about/Pages/whatwedo.aspx http://www.itu.int/en/about/Pages/whatwedo.aspx . (You don't want two satellites too close using a too similar band for the transmission, so someone has to do the bookkeeping and the dispute resolution. Internet is a totally different problem.)
- Jach 14y ago
  Isn't the proximity problem only a real issue for geostationary satellites? But in general I agree it's not the best idea; besides a bunch of technical problems it could always get shot down (even if unlikely)... A more realistic scenario would probably be connecting wireless mesh networks and ethernet cable networks (and sometimes fiber cables).
- JoeAltmaier 14y ago
  Regulated? How? The sky police arrest your satellite? The cool part of space is, its so big. You can really get away with a lot.
  - gus_massa 14y ago
    Plan a) Use an anti-satellite missile to destroy your satellite. Plan b) Use a standard missile to destroy your ground station. I think that the anti-satellite weapons were tested only against decoys. I don't remember a case were there was a rogue satellite and someone destroy it or the owners, but it's very difficult to argue with missile owners. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon

vijayr 14y ago

It's unbelievable that they even want to debate this.

mtgx 14y ago
Agreed. There's no need to even debate this. The answer is a resounding no.
- mhurron 14y ago
  > The answer is a resounding no. To you. Not necessarily to various governments around the world or the telecom companies that provide services they would like to get paid more for. The only reason there is no need to debate is that the ITU will make whatever decision it's members allow it to, giving feedback from outside the ITU is somewhat a pointless action.

motters 14y ago

"Sender pays" is a good way of stopping those pesky citizens from communicating and turning the interwebs into a TV-like experience.

mtgx 14y ago
I remember watching a video from 4 Norwegian guys I think, who talked indepth about how "they" want to turn the Internet into a TV experience. It all sounded like a big conspiracy theory (although I found it pretty easy to believe it myself), and now it turns out they were right. They've been preparing to do this for a while now.

j0j0r0 14y ago

trash.

dmix 14y ago

THIS is why the future won't be cool. It's not that the tech won't be cool, it's the never ending attempts for totalitarian control of it.

Jach 14y ago
Fortunately technology is advancing far more rapidly than government attempts to stamp on it, and government (or non-government) attempts or not people will find the best deal they can. Such meddling and artificial market pressures may in fact spur innovation, but I wouldn't bet on it. The history of commercial codes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_code_%28communications%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_code_%28communicatio... is an interesting one, though. Charging per length? Send compressed messages. Not compressed enough? Create the theory of compression and compress them even more. Print out shared code books to compress beyond the minimum for a raw message. What would Netflix do if the cost of paying for content transfer over wire suddenly exceeded the cost of other alternatives? They'd probably pursue those alternatives.
- mtgx 14y ago
  I think the "technology is advancing more rapidly than governments' attempts" works well when the technology allows people the communicate much easier with each other, and then it makes it easy for people to group and create extremely massive protests against such attempts. I think this part works a lot better than what you must be thinking - that we'll keep escaping governments through technical stuff, such as building darknets and whatnot. The problem with that is that while we may succeed in creating such solutions, it still ends up ultimately worse for us. Because now everyone has to become more technical to use these darknets, or to become anonymous, or to share stuff with each other, which will all be much harder than it is now on the Internet. This is why the solution should always be a political one, and not a technical one, because if we lose on the politics side, it means things will get worse for us from a user experience point of view, and it will only be a short-to-medium term solution anyway, until they come after that solution, too. So instead of trying to always be one step ahead through technical means, we should try and stand up for our rights from the beginning, when it's all starting, and make sure that the political solution lasts for decades until they try again. Here's an example. Instead of letting them pass laws that allow for warrantless monitoring of e-mails, which would then mean we'd all have to learn to use encrypted anonymous e-mail messages (which sounds like a pain), we should protest to create a law that demands warrants for that. And that's pretty much what we've achieved with the new ECPA now. While not always possible, the political solution is so much better than the technical one, and we should always strive to solve these problems through politics first.

stock_toaster 14y ago

P5 (I think this is the right term) have veto power in the security council. I dont see this passing any time soon... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_veto_power http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Counc...

mhurron 14y ago
Not every resolution or action by the UN goes through the Security Council. If it doesn't have a military angle to it the Security Council has nothing to do with it. This is an action by the ITU, the US's veto power in the Security Council means nothing here.
gradys 14y ago
While the P5 (US, UK, France, Russia, and the PRC) have veto power on the Security Council, they don't necessarily have veto power in the body discussed in the article. Theoretically, the Security Council could pass a resolution to stop the lower body from doing this, but that resolution would be subject to P5 veto power. The fact that is most likely to prevent this from being an issue is that the decisions of this ITU body are probably not binding, and the content providers will just ignore them unless governments actually try to enforce this.
- stock_toaster 14y ago
  Interesting. I thought resolutions from the body at large had to be vetted by the security council before they became 'ratified' by the UN as a whole. Thanks for the clarification.
nikcub 14y ago
the ITU has absolutely nothing to do with the UN Security Council edit: the comment below about 'lower body' in the UN (I believe he is referring to the General Assembly) also has nothing to do with the ITU for the ITU to adopt a resolution it needs to be approved by a simple majority of present members (while meeting quorum, which is half of the 172 members). This isn't the first time they have debated silly proposals. previous ideas that didn't pass include requiring all internet users to register, allowing governments to filter the internet and to be able to implement a 'kill switch'. none passed.

wmf 14y ago

I think the other thread has a more interesting discussion going: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4859882 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4859882 (Edit: fixed link)

Sniffnoy 14y ago
Is that the link you meant to put? It seems to be unrelated.