6 ms·

Why stop at the slow lane? There is nothing preventing ISP gatekeepers from wholeheartedly denying access. Slowness is just the beginning -- the end-goal is ma

by ihsw 12y ago

Why stop at the slow lane? There is nothing preventing ISP gatekeepers from wholeheartedly denying access. Slowness is just the beginning -- the end-goal is making the internet into multiple competing walled gardens where users are treated as silos that require permission to access. The global reach of the internet is at risk here. Imagine if Netflix wasn't accessible to Comcast users from the beginning because they wouldn't pay the toll. Would it have thrived and grown as quickly as it did, or would it have died in it's infancy? What about Skype? Skype stepped on the toes of incumbent ISPs' long-distance revenue streams, I wouldn't put it past AT&T to purposefully degrade the quality of Skype calls or even outright deny them from happening. Prior to being bought out by Microsoft, would they have had the revenue to pay for access to users? Would Microsoft have even bought Skype at all?

chimeracoder 12y ago
That would be politically trickier to pull off. It's much easier to say, "We're not censoring anything - we're just not giving them 'premium' speed.", and then redefine the status quo as the new 'premium'[0]. For Netflix, it doesn't matter - having the equivalent of dial-up speed is essentially the same as being blocked entirely, since their service depends on reasonably fast download speed. To illustrate another scenario, imagine two political candidates, one whose platform includes treating ISPs as a public utility, and one who doesn't. It would be very easy to slow the former's campaign website to a crawl (e.g., 30s or more load time per page). While this wouldn't prevent people from accessing the website, or him from getting his message out, it would seriously hamper it in very noticeable ways. This way, the ISP isn't censoring any political candidates (that would be bad!). They're "just" not giving him the "premium" speed. [0] This kind of redefinition happens all the time - notice that five years ago, mobile data plans were unlimited and texting was expensive for the carriers to offer. Suddenly, texting "became cheap" for them to offer, and data became limited. It's not that the costs dramatically changed (SMS always had literally zero marginal cost, since it piggybacks off of the packets already being sent), but fee structures and cost structures are oftentimes very different.
- bitJericho 12y ago
  Not really. I and a lot of Netflix customers would be happy to wait a few minutes for it to buffer enough of the video to begin showing it in HD. I'm not given that option though. "Luckily" I choose to live in an area with an ethical service provider so I get HD Netflix at no extra charge to me or Netflix.
- CamperBob2 12y ago
  Texting never cost anything at all for the carriers to offer. It uses a sideband data stream that's always present whether it carries a payload or not.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Right. Paying per-packet when there are only connection costs is a way for carriers to create a cash cow. That's why I fear pay-per-view models on the internet. Once I'm connected it isn't about the packets, yet lobbyists trained by cable TV are trying to inject that model where it makes no sense. Except of course to the scalping bastards trying to get rich selling packets.
  - danellis 12y ago
    People say that a lot, because they've heard it somewhere, but do you actually have the facts to back it up? I'd have to check my books to be sure, but I think you're talking about SMS delivery over the SACCH. That's an associated channel, meaning it goes along with a traffic channel, so that would apply if you were in a call. If you were not in a call, it would have to go over a standalone control channel SDCCH -- in other words, that channel would be being specifically used for the SMS transfer. And, of course, there's the cost of running the SMSC.
jackmaney 12y ago
Hell, why stop at Netflix? It would be a ballsy move, but I'd applaud Google if they took one day and directed all searches from, say, Comcast to a static page explaining the dangers of "slow lanes" and "fast lanes" in the internet.
knappe 12y ago
We see this already with blackout outs in cable TV for various sports games ect. In fact, it took 4 months to resolve a dispute between DirecTV and the Weather Channel [0], which affected 20 Million people. There was some outrage, but not enough to for DirecTV to relent. Instead, the content provider was forced to change [1]. There are lessons to be learned here for other content providers, like Netflix. My worry is that the gatekeepers still hold too much power and are strong arming content providers, using consumers as pawns. [0] http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-directv-weather-channel-deal-20140408-story.html http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-c... [1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/04/08/weather-channel-cuts-reality-shows-in-directv-deal/7472653/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/04/08/weather-cha...
- danielweber 12y ago
  You have the sports blackout backwards. The content producer has demanded the blackout, not the gatekeeper, which would be happy to have the viewers.
  - knappe 12y ago
    Blackouts occur as a negotiation between local channels and the regional broadcasters (gate keepers), in general, such that local channels get priority over regional broadcasters. Here is an example of a gatekeeper forcing blackouts the other way around [0]. The content producer was required to enforce a blackout on local channels as part of the deal with the gate keeper. Net result? Consumers lose. [0] http://articles.philly.com/2014-03-27/news/48599544_1_phillies-games-comcast-cable-sports-games http://articles.philly.com/2014-03-27/news/48599544_1_philli...
- Jtsummers 12y ago
  And not just sports. In the mid-90s I lived in south Georgia and was a Star Trek fan, at the time that meant watching UPN. The local UPN station was blocked during prime time for our area (literally local, it was broadcast from that town) in order for the FL (Talahassee?) station to retain its viewership. Only one problem, our cable offered only the local UPN station, not the FL one, so the blackout meant a 100% blackout of UPN during primetime for our town (short of rabbit ears, I wasn't that big a fan). Later, the two ABC affiliates ended up at odds with each other when the closer one ended up blocked by the one out of Atlanta, again during prime time.
edoloughlin 12y ago
Imagine if Netflix wasn't accessible to Comcast users from the beginning because they wouldn't pay the toll. Would it have thrived and grown as quickly as it did, or would it have died in it's infancy? If I was building a bandwidth-intensive startup in the US at the moment, I'd be seriously looking at using port-hopping p2p as my distribution mechanism with some randomisation of the payload to make profiling/identification as difficult as possible.
- CamperBob2 12y ago
  Then Comcast will simply charge out the nose for the ability to send more than a trivial amount of data.
  - secabeen 12y ago
    That would impact the ability of users to access corporate VPNs and work from home. My hope is that that's a large enough user base that they can't limit it too much.
  - AnthonyMouse 12y ago
    They effectively already do this by selling highly asymmetric connections. They can't do much more than they already are because you have to have enough upload bandwidth to acknowledge all the packets you receive when downloading. And too many customers (and large companies) would complain to Congress if uploading a picture to InstaGram or a clip to YouTube took several minutes or cost a lot of money.
- exelius 12y ago
  p2p is a terrible distribution mechanism; it's pretty flaky and it destroys battery life on mobile devices which is where most of the growth in the tech sector is right now. Also there are issues with DRM in p2p. Yeah I know, DRM isn't popular, but video content owners insist on it and distributors can't do anything about that.
  - x0x0 12y ago
    spotify made it work: their desktop client is a p2p network
revelation 12y ago
All of that has already happened. They banned BitTorrent where and when they can get away with it and they block Skype on particular mobile data contracts. Note a very foreshadowing EFF press release: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/08/fcc-rules-against-comcast-bit-torrent-blocking https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/08/fcc-rules-against-comc...
symmetricsaurus 12y ago
> The global reach of the internet is at risk here. The Internet has up til now had a global reach and that may be at risk with recent developments. Individual services such as Netflix, Youtube or Spotify have not had a global reach and may never have as long as the current structure for licensing and distribution of content persists. Internet based distribution of content has always been under attack or limited by the traditional content distributors such as record labels, movie and tv studios and publishers. What is new is the attack from the ISPs from the other side.
petenixey 12y ago
Slow is so more infuriating - as perfectly illustrated by this Oatmeal... http://theoatmeal.com/comics/no_internet http://theoatmeal.com/comics/no_internet
- M4v3R 12y ago
  I agree with this 100%. When my internet gets slow I'm wasting so much time, because I'm still thinking it will finally work for me, whereas if its not working at all, I can go and do something else that is productive and doesn't require internet access.
pault 12y ago
I live in Belize and until a few months ago skype was blocked by the government granted monopoly telecom. Welcome to the future!
- awor 12y ago
  I remember finding this out on a trip there in 2007, glad to see it has changed
lvs 12y ago
It's a retrograde step back to the days of AOL and CompuServe, when access to off-network services was a premium feature.
pdabbadabba 12y ago
There's a lot not to like about the FCC's proposal, but one of its virtues is that it does include, as a guiding principle, "no blocking." http://www.fcc.gov/guides/open-internet http://www.fcc.gov/guides/open-internet So, under whatever rules it comes up with, it seems quite unlikely that your assertion, "There is nothing preventing ISP gatekeepers from wholeheartedly denying access," will be true. It is possible, of course, that this rule could corrode over time, or that the slow-lane might be so slow that it serves as a de-facto block. But I think we'll need to see the actual proposed rule before we can assess that risk realistically.
- ertdfgcb 12y ago
  I think blocking might already be possible. Comcast is known for intermittent service problems, it would probably be pretty easy for them to give "intermittent service problems" to anyone trying to access a blocked site. They couldn't stop them from accessing it forever, but they could make it really really annoying.
  - pdabbadabba 12y ago
    That's true. But actually, on that score, it seems like the new rules are likely to be an improvement. (!!!) Now, if you think that Comcast is blocking content in the guise of "service problems," the most you can do, realistically, is call customer service. But if they do that with an explicit "no blocking" rule in place, they're just asking to get sued--either by a consumer, a state communications commission, or the FCC itself.
    - ep103 12y ago
      It doesn't matter if its no-blocking, if they allow their current service to degrade to the point that it is unusable. That's exactly the same as blocking for everything, except a few specific services that paid for the 'fast lane'. And its already happening http://bgr.com/2014/05/06/comcast-internet-service-criticism-twc-cablevision-level-3/ http://bgr.com/2014/05/06/comcast-internet-service-criticism...
jellicle 12y ago
Well, it will be like anything else - the first hit is free, then you have to pay. Netflix wouldn't have been killed in its infancy; it would have been killed as it became a toddler and started to walk and to run. So your startup will be going like gangbusters for the first couple of months, then you'll get a letter noting that your "abnormal usage patterns" require "an agreement" or else you "will be subject to rate-limiting". And the fee will be set as close your estimated profits as the ISP can come...

by ihsw 12y ago

chimeracoder 12y ago

That would be politically trickier to pull off. It's much easier to say, "We're not censoring anything - we're just not giving them 'premium' speed.", and then redefine the status quo as the new 'premium'[0]. For Netflix, it doesn't matter - having the equivalent of dial-up speed is essentially the same as being blocked entirely, since their service depends on reasonably fast download speed. To illustrate another scenario, imagine two political candidates, one whose platform includes treating ISPs as a public utility, and one who doesn't. It would be very easy to slow the former's campaign website to a crawl (e.g., 30s or more load time per page). While this wouldn't prevent people from accessing the website, or him from getting his message out, it would seriously hamper it in very noticeable ways. This way, the ISP isn't censoring any political candidates (that would be bad!). They're "just" not giving him the "premium" speed. [0] This kind of redefinition happens all the time - notice that five years ago, mobile data plans were unlimited and texting was expensive for the carriers to offer. Suddenly, texting "became cheap" for them to offer, and data became limited. It's not that the costs dramatically changed (SMS always had literally zero marginal cost, since it piggybacks off of the packets already being sent), but fee structures and cost structures are oftentimes very different.

bitJericho 12y ago
Not really. I and a lot of Netflix customers would be happy to wait a few minutes for it to buffer enough of the video to begin showing it in HD. I'm not given that option though. "Luckily" I choose to live in an area with an ethical service provider so I get HD Netflix at no extra charge to me or Netflix.
CamperBob2 12y ago
Texting never cost anything at all for the carriers to offer. It uses a sideband data stream that's always present whether it carries a payload or not.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Right. Paying per-packet when there are only connection costs is a way for carriers to create a cash cow. That's why I fear pay-per-view models on the internet. Once I'm connected it isn't about the packets, yet lobbyists trained by cable TV are trying to inject that model where it makes no sense. Except of course to the scalping bastards trying to get rich selling packets.
- danellis 12y ago
  People say that a lot, because they've heard it somewhere, but do you actually have the facts to back it up? I'd have to check my books to be sure, but I think you're talking about SMS delivery over the SACCH. That's an associated channel, meaning it goes along with a traffic channel, so that would apply if you were in a call. If you were not in a call, it would have to go over a standalone control channel SDCCH -- in other words, that channel would be being specifically used for the SMS transfer. And, of course, there's the cost of running the SMSC.

jackmaney 12y ago

Hell, why stop at Netflix? It would be a ballsy move, but I'd applaud Google if they took one day and directed all searches from, say, Comcast to a static page explaining the dangers of "slow lanes" and "fast lanes" in the internet.

knappe 12y ago

We see this already with blackout outs in cable TV for various sports games ect. In fact, it took 4 months to resolve a dispute between DirecTV and the Weather Channel [0], which affected 20 Million people. There was some outrage, but not enough to for DirecTV to relent. Instead, the content provider was forced to change [1]. There are lessons to be learned here for other content providers, like Netflix. My worry is that the gatekeepers still hold too much power and are strong arming content providers, using consumers as pawns. [0] http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-directv-weather-channel-deal-20140408-story.html http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-c... [1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/04/08/weather-channel-cuts-reality-shows-in-directv-deal/7472653/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/04/08/weather-cha...

danielweber 12y ago
You have the sports blackout backwards. The content producer has demanded the blackout, not the gatekeeper, which would be happy to have the viewers.
- knappe 12y ago
  Blackouts occur as a negotiation between local channels and the regional broadcasters (gate keepers), in general, such that local channels get priority over regional broadcasters. Here is an example of a gatekeeper forcing blackouts the other way around [0]. The content producer was required to enforce a blackout on local channels as part of the deal with the gate keeper. Net result? Consumers lose. [0] http://articles.philly.com/2014-03-27/news/48599544_1_phillies-games-comcast-cable-sports-games http://articles.philly.com/2014-03-27/news/48599544_1_philli...
Jtsummers 12y ago
And not just sports. In the mid-90s I lived in south Georgia and was a Star Trek fan, at the time that meant watching UPN. The local UPN station was blocked during prime time for our area (literally local, it was broadcast from that town) in order for the FL (Talahassee?) station to retain its viewership. Only one problem, our cable offered only the local UPN station, not the FL one, so the blackout meant a 100% blackout of UPN during primetime for our town (short of rabbit ears, I wasn't that big a fan). Later, the two ABC affiliates ended up at odds with each other when the closer one ended up blocked by the one out of Atlanta, again during prime time.

edoloughlin 12y ago

Imagine if Netflix wasn't accessible to Comcast users from the beginning because they wouldn't pay the toll. Would it have thrived and grown as quickly as it did, or would it have died in it's infancy? If I was building a bandwidth-intensive startup in the US at the moment, I'd be seriously looking at using port-hopping p2p as my distribution mechanism with some randomisation of the payload to make profiling/identification as difficult as possible.

CamperBob2 12y ago
Then Comcast will simply charge out the nose for the ability to send more than a trivial amount of data.
- secabeen 12y ago
  That would impact the ability of users to access corporate VPNs and work from home. My hope is that that's a large enough user base that they can't limit it too much.
- AnthonyMouse 12y ago
  They effectively already do this by selling highly asymmetric connections. They can't do much more than they already are because you have to have enough upload bandwidth to acknowledge all the packets you receive when downloading. And too many customers (and large companies) would complain to Congress if uploading a picture to InstaGram or a clip to YouTube took several minutes or cost a lot of money.
exelius 12y ago
p2p is a terrible distribution mechanism; it's pretty flaky and it destroys battery life on mobile devices which is where most of the growth in the tech sector is right now. Also there are issues with DRM in p2p. Yeah I know, DRM isn't popular, but video content owners insist on it and distributors can't do anything about that.
- x0x0 12y ago
  spotify made it work: their desktop client is a p2p network

revelation 12y ago

All of that has already happened. They banned BitTorrent where and when they can get away with it and they block Skype on particular mobile data contracts. Note a very foreshadowing EFF press release: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/08/fcc-rules-against-comcast-bit-torrent-blocking https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/08/fcc-rules-against-comc...

symmetricsaurus 12y ago

> The global reach of the internet is at risk here. The Internet has up til now had a global reach and that may be at risk with recent developments. Individual services such as Netflix, Youtube or Spotify have not had a global reach and may never have as long as the current structure for licensing and distribution of content persists. Internet based distribution of content has always been under attack or limited by the traditional content distributors such as record labels, movie and tv studios and publishers. What is new is the attack from the ISPs from the other side.

petenixey 12y ago

Slow is so more infuriating - as perfectly illustrated by this Oatmeal... http://theoatmeal.com/comics/no_internet http://theoatmeal.com/comics/no_internet

M4v3R 12y ago
I agree with this 100%. When my internet gets slow I'm wasting so much time, because I'm still thinking it will finally work for me, whereas if its not working at all, I can go and do something else that is productive and doesn't require internet access.

pault 12y ago

I live in Belize and until a few months ago skype was blocked by the government granted monopoly telecom. Welcome to the future!

awor 12y ago
I remember finding this out on a trip there in 2007, glad to see it has changed

lvs 12y ago

It's a retrograde step back to the days of AOL and CompuServe, when access to off-network services was a premium feature.

pdabbadabba 12y ago

There's a lot not to like about the FCC's proposal, but one of its virtues is that it does include, as a guiding principle, "no blocking." http://www.fcc.gov/guides/open-internet http://www.fcc.gov/guides/open-internet So, under whatever rules it comes up with, it seems quite unlikely that your assertion, "There is nothing preventing ISP gatekeepers from wholeheartedly denying access," will be true. It is possible, of course, that this rule could corrode over time, or that the slow-lane might be so slow that it serves as a de-facto block. But I think we'll need to see the actual proposed rule before we can assess that risk realistically.

ertdfgcb 12y ago
I think blocking might already be possible. Comcast is known for intermittent service problems, it would probably be pretty easy for them to give "intermittent service problems" to anyone trying to access a blocked site. They couldn't stop them from accessing it forever, but they could make it really really annoying.
- pdabbadabba 12y ago
  That's true. But actually, on that score, it seems like the new rules are likely to be an improvement. (!!!) Now, if you think that Comcast is blocking content in the guise of "service problems," the most you can do, realistically, is call customer service. But if they do that with an explicit "no blocking" rule in place, they're just asking to get sued--either by a consumer, a state communications commission, or the FCC itself.
  - ep103 12y ago
    It doesn't matter if its no-blocking, if they allow their current service to degrade to the point that it is unusable. That's exactly the same as blocking for everything, except a few specific services that paid for the 'fast lane'. And its already happening http://bgr.com/2014/05/06/comcast-internet-service-criticism-twc-cablevision-level-3/ http://bgr.com/2014/05/06/comcast-internet-service-criticism...

jellicle 12y ago

Well, it will be like anything else - the first hit is free, then you have to pay. Netflix wouldn't have been killed in its infancy; it would have been killed as it became a toddler and started to walk and to run. So your startup will be going like gangbusters for the first couple of months, then you'll get a letter noting that your "abnormal usage patterns" require "an agreement" or else you "will be subject to rate-limiting". And the fee will be set as close your estimated profits as the ISP can come...