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>> Costs for consumers haven't really gone up Costs for consumers are whatever the ISPs decide they are. The answer should look like "if you cost us more, we c

>> Costs for consumers haven't really gone up Costs for consumers are whatever the ISPs decide they are. The answer should look like "if you cost us more, we charge you more," just like every other business on the planet. It doesn't have to be X bits = Y dollars. It could factor in load; the meter runs faster at high-demand times and slower at off-peak times. That solves the "bandwidth is a renewable resource" argument and the "some people use more than their share" argument. They'd just have to ensure that the meter is highly visible to consumers.

josh2600 14y ago
Let's be frank, the only real cost for consumer internet is the last mile. Since Internet access for residential bandwidth was reclassified thanks to the memo from George W. Bush around 2004 we haven't had real competition because common carriage doesn't extend to your front door. Contrast this with Datacenter bandwidth where paying $.10 a megabit isn't unheard of. The cost structures are not related to the core infrastructure, but rather the edge. I think this problem is a lot more complex than you're making it out to be, but that's just my opinion. In a lot of cases the rates for ISPs aren't set randomly, they're anchored to standards set by regulatory bodies (particularly in the case of DSL). In short, pricing bandwidth is hard. The real cost is the last mile.
- nathan_long 14y ago
  I think you understand this better than I do, so maybe I'm being simplistic. But isn't the gist of what you're saying "it's complicated because ISPs have gotten themselves a near-monopoly status and then, in reaction, we've regulated them?" If so, that doesn't make me sympathize with them at all. If they want freedom to charge more according to access, or to charge more according to the difficulty of running the last mile connection, I'd say "give up your monopoly protections and we'll remove your regulation." If they don't want that, I'd say "you start charging both the consumer and the content provider and we'll pass a regulation saying you can't." If a company wants the government to be their sugar daddy, they shouldn't complain when they get grounded. You want your own rules, you move out of the house and compete in the free market.
  - josh2600 14y ago
    In very old industries you often have players who have a monopolistic status. Markets either become price efficient or competition deficient over time. In the case of telecom there is stratified warfare. At the consumer level, competition is scarce. In the SMB Segment competition is fierce. In the Datacenters world competition is fierce, but at the core of everything you have to go through 721 Folsom street to get out of the left coast. This fight is particularly interesting because it's one of the first to cross the Commercial-Residential boundary. On the one hand, consumers pay for access, on the other, large ISPs peer networks. One is a contract, the other a handshake. In this particular case, ISPs argue that since usage increases so should rates, but in order to arrive at such a conclusion, the large ISPs would have to ignore their monopoly. Let's take this a step further though; there's a really big problem with everyone building their own network. That is, no one wants thousands of wires running to each residence, but that's what a competitive last mile would look like. The answer is municipally controlled networks with private operators. The infrastructure would be owned by the state, but operated by competitive virtual operators. Unfortunately, this vision is impossible in America, and that's why we can't tackle this problem straight-on and instead have to operate through layers of abstraction. TL;DR: public networks, private operators is ideal. Impossible in US.
    - graysnorf 14y ago
      Why do you say it's impossible in the US?
      - josh2600 14y ago
        It's impossible due to regulatory and lobbying pressure. I believe Palo Alto, CA operates a network similar to this, but that kind of network isn't possible in a city like San Francisco or LA. IMHO the incumbent carriers have no interest in competing if they can be a monopoly.

josh2600 14y ago

Let's be frank, the only real cost for consumer internet is the last mile. Since Internet access for residential bandwidth was reclassified thanks to the memo from George W. Bush around 2004 we haven't had real competition because common carriage doesn't extend to your front door. Contrast this with Datacenter bandwidth where paying $.10 a megabit isn't unheard of. The cost structures are not related to the core infrastructure, but rather the edge. I think this problem is a lot more complex than you're making it out to be, but that's just my opinion. In a lot of cases the rates for ISPs aren't set randomly, they're anchored to standards set by regulatory bodies (particularly in the case of DSL). In short, pricing bandwidth is hard. The real cost is the last mile.

nathan_long 14y ago
I think you understand this better than I do, so maybe I'm being simplistic. But isn't the gist of what you're saying "it's complicated because ISPs have gotten themselves a near-monopoly status and then, in reaction, we've regulated them?" If so, that doesn't make me sympathize with them at all. If they want freedom to charge more according to access, or to charge more according to the difficulty of running the last mile connection, I'd say "give up your monopoly protections and we'll remove your regulation." If they don't want that, I'd say "you start charging both the consumer and the content provider and we'll pass a regulation saying you can't." If a company wants the government to be their sugar daddy, they shouldn't complain when they get grounded. You want your own rules, you move out of the house and compete in the free market.
- josh2600 14y ago
  In very old industries you often have players who have a monopolistic status. Markets either become price efficient or competition deficient over time. In the case of telecom there is stratified warfare. At the consumer level, competition is scarce. In the SMB Segment competition is fierce. In the Datacenters world competition is fierce, but at the core of everything you have to go through 721 Folsom street to get out of the left coast. This fight is particularly interesting because it's one of the first to cross the Commercial-Residential boundary. On the one hand, consumers pay for access, on the other, large ISPs peer networks. One is a contract, the other a handshake. In this particular case, ISPs argue that since usage increases so should rates, but in order to arrive at such a conclusion, the large ISPs would have to ignore their monopoly. Let's take this a step further though; there's a really big problem with everyone building their own network. That is, no one wants thousands of wires running to each residence, but that's what a competitive last mile would look like. The answer is municipally controlled networks with private operators. The infrastructure would be owned by the state, but operated by competitive virtual operators. Unfortunately, this vision is impossible in America, and that's why we can't tackle this problem straight-on and instead have to operate through layers of abstraction. TL;DR: public networks, private operators is ideal. Impossible in US.
  - graysnorf 14y ago
    Why do you say it's impossible in the US?
    - josh2600 14y ago
      It's impossible due to regulatory and lobbying pressure. I believe Palo Alto, CA operates a network similar to this, but that kind of network isn't possible in a city like San Francisco or LA. IMHO the incumbent carriers have no interest in competing if they can be a monopoly.