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Except it’s actually right (not wrong) because those bits are only coming because customers of the ISPs — you and me, the folks who have already paid for every

Except it’s actually right (not wrong) because those bits are only coming because customers of the ISPs — you and me, the folks who have already paid for every one of those bits — are the ones who want them. What is the source of the notion that, because you paid for your consumer broadband, all bits are paid for and the charge for carrying them cannot be split with the other side of the connection? Why is it so bizarre that both sides of the connection have to pay for it? Because you're used to your phone working differently? As an analogy, you know how you used to pay for a subscription to a magazine and there were ads inside which advertisers (the other side of the connection via the magazine in this case) also paid for? The magazine split its fee in two: you paid part of it, and the advertisers paid the other part. It's the same here. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with charging both sides. You may prefer a different fee structure but a better argument than "I already paid for it!" is necessary.

wging 12y ago
In this case, the difference is that broadband subscribers are not being sold a magazine which they know will contain ads--they are being sold a full connection to the internet! That's the precedent, that's what we think we're getting for our money.
- spindritf 12y ago
  What does full connection to the Internet mean? No ISP can guarantee it because any other independent network can drop traffic at will. And the Internet is just a bunch of independent networks. The service you believe you paid for doesn't and cannot exist. I can filter out all Comcast IPs on my firewall tomorrow if I feel like it. Many people actually do it to third world providers.
  - talmand 12y ago
    There's a difference between bits not being delivered because of the originating server failing to deliver and my ISP actively preventing delivery. "Unlimited Internet" has already been established in sales pitches for years, the language defined once people understood the concept of bandwidth caps. "Unlimited" means you have unlimited "access", not unlimited "bandwidth". This has been the industry's very own sales pitch for years.
stevejones 12y ago
The other side of the connection has paid. ISPs are now wanting the backbone, i.e. the provider that makes the internet go long distances, to pay them.
spankalee 12y ago
No, it's not, because the other side also paid for it to their ISP, CDN, or the build-out and operation of their own CDN. What Comcast and friends are asking for is a _third_ payment, just because. And don't be mistaken, if they win this battle they will start looking for the fourth payment, which is from their customers for faster service to "premium" sites like Netflix, HBO, iTunes, etc.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - yuliyp 12y ago
    Talking about symmetric links only makes sense when you think about backbone providers. When you're talking about residential ISPs, their traffic is by default asymmetric (residential customers consume bits and request much smaller numbers of bits), but that doesn't mean the value is gained only by the person sending the bits, it's also gained by the person receiving the bits. This doesn't actually make any sense. Let's say everyone decided "No, we're not going to peer with Comcast because it's not in our interest to do so". What would happen? Do you think someone would step up to the plate and say "Hi Comcast! We're going to pay you for the privilege of being your transit provider!" And yet if the asymmetry story is to be believed, it's Comcast that should be paid by a transit provider, right?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
- spindritf 12y ago
  because the other side also paid for it to their ISP, CDN, or the build-out and operation of their own CDN. That's like saying that you should be able to park for free because you paid for your car, all the taxes on it, and the fee for issuing a driving license. Paying your ISP doesn't necessarily grant you unlimited access to every other network on the Internet. There is no God-ordained fee structure here. It can be split between you, Comcast, Netflix, your landlord (many will pay for laying fibre and then for servicing it), local government... Some may be better than others but there's definitely no moral highground.
angersock 12y ago
Yes, by all means, let us have the Internet enjoy the same level of success as magazines! This idea that the senders haven't paid at all is absurd; even more absurd is the idea that we want to move to a model where whoever has the deepest pockets should have the loudest voice on the 'net. Don't people see that the value of this whole thing is that anyone can be heard by anyone else who tunes in? Adding these other barriers to entry, just to make a quick buck, is bullshit.
toomuchtodo 12y ago
> There is nothing fundamentally wrong with charging both sides. You may prefer a different fee structure but a better argument than "I already paid for it!" is necessary. Fair enough. Eminent domain can also be used to seize the cable plant and put it under ownership of a non-profit/municipal broadband provider, who won't gouge those who request/send bits. The knife cuts both ways.
- talmand 12y ago
  That's been attempted. Many municipals have tried to roll out their own broadband to be sued by the industry to prevent it. Although eminent domain is an interesting argument, not that I agree with it necessarily.
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    > Although eminent domain is an interesting argument, not that I agree with it necessarily. Why? Public funding and a government-granted monopoly were the reasons local ILECs have the power they do; they'd be given fair value for their gear in the ground.
    - talmand 12y ago
      Well, my feeling on the matter stems from the fact that eminent domain is an incredibly powerful tool that can potentially disrupt a large number of people's lives. Like all such powerful government tools it is easily abused. It is especially terrible when it is abused because it essentially, and legally, removes people's property rights. Many think property rights are a cornerstone to personal freedom. Essentially, eminent domain should be used as a last resort in all cases. No matter how trivial or non-invasive to the public the seizure may seem. If a local municipal moves in to seize something like that, any other company may think twice of implementing a similar service in the future. If they perform the seizure and it works out, what else could they seize for the greater good? I would rather they remove the government-granted monopoly to open competition and perform an audit to make sure the company fulfilled their part of the bargain in receiving public funds. If they fail the audit, request the money back.
xanderstrike 12y ago
I don't think your argument holds water. Netflix and Hulu don't get their internet connections for free. They pay for the hookup just like we do, except they buy their bits in bulk. Incidentally, this is also how phones work. Both sides pay their own phone companies for the connection. You would be appalled if Verizon decided to start charging T-Mobile extra so that T-Mobile users could call Verizon subscribers. The argument that "I already paid for it" is compelling and final. I paid for a service, if I don't receive that service I've been robbed. It's as simple as that.
bcbrown 12y ago
The "other side" of those bits is paying their internet service provider. They pay their ISP, you pay your ISP, why should they also have to pay your ISP?
dsr_ 12y ago
Err... because the contract you make with your ISP is not "I'll pay for outbound packets, inbound are free because somebody else is paying for that." The contract is "I pay for this much maximum bandwidth in each of two directions, and you make a good effort to deliver my packets and return what gets sent back."
talmand 12y ago
I would think there are few comparisons because in the long run the idea is not logical and few would agree to such an arrangement unless they were forced to. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with it, but it's not always a sound business model. I'm sure it's great when you can make it happen but it would be easy to disrupt by a competitor. It would be the equivalent of a third-party delivery service charging the buyer a fee to deliver and the seller a fee to deliver the same purchased item with their delivery trucks. Now, some may do that; but it would be easy for a competitor to see the consumer unfriendliness of such a practice to step up and say "we only charge once per delivery!". That would likely be the end of the Double-Dipping Delivery Service because both the buyer and seller would be better off with this new service. But that's the key, many of these ISPs don't have competition so they can try to enforce such a consumer unfriendly practice. The question is whether am I paying to have bits delivered that I request or am I paying to have access to the Internet so that bits can be delivered to me if I request them? Based on the sales pitch and pricing from my ISP, it is clear to me I'm paying to have bits delivered. If the ISPs will lower my pricing to be a connection and then charge companies to deliver bits to me, then that's something different. There would have to be some financial agreement between me and that company as to how to cover that cost. That could either be a direct payment transaction or I have to watch ads to cover their costs. Netflix could charge me $20 a month if my high-speed connection was $5 a month, or even free, since they charge Netflix a nominal fee to deliver bits to me. As far as I know, no ISP has ever sold Internet connections that way. So for them to claim that both parties need to be charged for bits delivered is attempting to double charge on a bill of goods already sold. The argument is more like, "Somebody already paid for it!" and is quite valid. Your magazine example fails because the ads conceivably subsidize the cost of delivering the magazine to me. Without the ads, my pricing for the magazine would be higher. To be accurate to the argument, the magazine would need to charge full price for ads and not subsidize the cost of getting the magazine to me at all, charging me full price as well.
fredophile 12y ago
What if we look at it from the other side? Here's an argument that's very similar to yours: What is the source of the notion that, because Netflix paid for bandwidth, all bits are paid for and the charge for carrying them cannot be split with the other side of the connection? Why is it so bizarre that both sides of the connection have to pay for it? Because you're used to your phone working differently? As an analogy, you know how you used to pay for cable and the cable company paid money to stations they showed you? The TV station split its fee in two: the cable company paid part of it, and the advertisers paid the other part. It's the same here. If you're going to say that one side gets to charge at both ends what makes the receiving side special? Why shouldn't the side with the content get to double dip instead?
- hga 12y ago
  But it is split, or let me assure you, my AT&T ADSL connection is very much not free. TV is not apropos because in the US subscribers don't pay for it (compare to the U.K. "television license" and advertisement free BBC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Un... ); cable is paid for, and there are or at least have been commercial free channels on cable. That plus a lack of censoring was part of HBO's unique selling proposition after all.
  - fredophile 12y ago
    What exactly is the point of your post? So far everyone has agreed that both the company hosting the server and the consumer are paying for their connections.
Spooky23 12y ago
You're presenting a valid argument, but I don't think that you can equate postal distribution system with the internet. The nature of the internet is such that it's a public network assembled out of a number of private networks. It works because these private networks meet at exchange points and transport each other's traffic at no cost. Everyone pays for access. The difference between the Internet and the USPS is that the post office is a closed loop where the sender pays to admit its payload into the network. The post office delivers mail to me at any volume -- I don't have to pay to receive mail. The whole point of the internet was to escape the rate tariff structure imposed by AT&T back in ye olden days.

wging 12y ago

In this case, the difference is that broadband subscribers are not being sold a magazine which they know will contain ads--they are being sold a full connection to the internet! That's the precedent, that's what we think we're getting for our money.

spindritf 12y ago
What does full connection to the Internet mean? No ISP can guarantee it because any other independent network can drop traffic at will. And the Internet is just a bunch of independent networks. The service you believe you paid for doesn't and cannot exist. I can filter out all Comcast IPs on my firewall tomorrow if I feel like it. Many people actually do it to third world providers.
- talmand 12y ago
  There's a difference between bits not being delivered because of the originating server failing to deliver and my ISP actively preventing delivery. "Unlimited Internet" has already been established in sales pitches for years, the language defined once people understood the concept of bandwidth caps. "Unlimited" means you have unlimited "access", not unlimited "bandwidth". This has been the industry's very own sales pitch for years.

stevejones 12y ago

The other side of the connection has paid. ISPs are now wanting the backbone, i.e. the provider that makes the internet go long distances, to pay them.

spankalee 12y ago

No, it's not, because the other side also paid for it to their ISP, CDN, or the build-out and operation of their own CDN. What Comcast and friends are asking for is a _third_ payment, just because. And don't be mistaken, if they win this battle they will start looking for the fourth payment, which is from their customers for faster service to "premium" sites like Netflix, HBO, iTunes, etc.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- yuliyp 12y ago
  Talking about symmetric links only makes sense when you think about backbone providers. When you're talking about residential ISPs, their traffic is by default asymmetric (residential customers consume bits and request much smaller numbers of bits), but that doesn't mean the value is gained only by the person sending the bits, it's also gained by the person receiving the bits. This doesn't actually make any sense. Let's say everyone decided "No, we're not going to peer with Comcast because it's not in our interest to do so". What would happen? Do you think someone would step up to the plate and say "Hi Comcast! We're going to pay you for the privilege of being your transit provider!" And yet if the asymmetry story is to be believed, it's Comcast that should be paid by a transit provider, right?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
spindritf 12y ago
because the other side also paid for it to their ISP, CDN, or the build-out and operation of their own CDN. That's like saying that you should be able to park for free because you paid for your car, all the taxes on it, and the fee for issuing a driving license. Paying your ISP doesn't necessarily grant you unlimited access to every other network on the Internet. There is no God-ordained fee structure here. It can be split between you, Comcast, Netflix, your landlord (many will pay for laying fibre and then for servicing it), local government... Some may be better than others but there's definitely no moral highground.

angersock 12y ago

Yes, by all means, let us have the Internet enjoy the same level of success as magazines! This idea that the senders haven't paid at all is absurd; even more absurd is the idea that we want to move to a model where whoever has the deepest pockets should have the loudest voice on the 'net. Don't people see that the value of this whole thing is that anyone can be heard by anyone else who tunes in? Adding these other barriers to entry, just to make a quick buck, is bullshit.

toomuchtodo 12y ago

> There is nothing fundamentally wrong with charging both sides. You may prefer a different fee structure but a better argument than "I already paid for it!" is necessary. Fair enough. Eminent domain can also be used to seize the cable plant and put it under ownership of a non-profit/municipal broadband provider, who won't gouge those who request/send bits. The knife cuts both ways.

talmand 12y ago
That's been attempted. Many municipals have tried to roll out their own broadband to be sued by the industry to prevent it. Although eminent domain is an interesting argument, not that I agree with it necessarily.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  > Although eminent domain is an interesting argument, not that I agree with it necessarily. Why? Public funding and a government-granted monopoly were the reasons local ILECs have the power they do; they'd be given fair value for their gear in the ground.
  - talmand 12y ago
    Well, my feeling on the matter stems from the fact that eminent domain is an incredibly powerful tool that can potentially disrupt a large number of people's lives. Like all such powerful government tools it is easily abused. It is especially terrible when it is abused because it essentially, and legally, removes people's property rights. Many think property rights are a cornerstone to personal freedom. Essentially, eminent domain should be used as a last resort in all cases. No matter how trivial or non-invasive to the public the seizure may seem. If a local municipal moves in to seize something like that, any other company may think twice of implementing a similar service in the future. If they perform the seizure and it works out, what else could they seize for the greater good? I would rather they remove the government-granted monopoly to open competition and perform an audit to make sure the company fulfilled their part of the bargain in receiving public funds. If they fail the audit, request the money back.

xanderstrike 12y ago

I don't think your argument holds water. Netflix and Hulu don't get their internet connections for free. They pay for the hookup just like we do, except they buy their bits in bulk. Incidentally, this is also how phones work. Both sides pay their own phone companies for the connection. You would be appalled if Verizon decided to start charging T-Mobile extra so that T-Mobile users could call Verizon subscribers. The argument that "I already paid for it" is compelling and final. I paid for a service, if I don't receive that service I've been robbed. It's as simple as that.

bcbrown 12y ago

The "other side" of those bits is paying their internet service provider. They pay their ISP, you pay your ISP, why should they also have to pay your ISP?

dsr_ 12y ago

Err... because the contract you make with your ISP is not "I'll pay for outbound packets, inbound are free because somebody else is paying for that." The contract is "I pay for this much maximum bandwidth in each of two directions, and you make a good effort to deliver my packets and return what gets sent back."

talmand 12y ago

I would think there are few comparisons because in the long run the idea is not logical and few would agree to such an arrangement unless they were forced to. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with it, but it's not always a sound business model. I'm sure it's great when you can make it happen but it would be easy to disrupt by a competitor. It would be the equivalent of a third-party delivery service charging the buyer a fee to deliver and the seller a fee to deliver the same purchased item with their delivery trucks. Now, some may do that; but it would be easy for a competitor to see the consumer unfriendliness of such a practice to step up and say "we only charge once per delivery!". That would likely be the end of the Double-Dipping Delivery Service because both the buyer and seller would be better off with this new service. But that's the key, many of these ISPs don't have competition so they can try to enforce such a consumer unfriendly practice. The question is whether am I paying to have bits delivered that I request or am I paying to have access to the Internet so that bits can be delivered to me if I request them? Based on the sales pitch and pricing from my ISP, it is clear to me I'm paying to have bits delivered. If the ISPs will lower my pricing to be a connection and then charge companies to deliver bits to me, then that's something different. There would have to be some financial agreement between me and that company as to how to cover that cost. That could either be a direct payment transaction or I have to watch ads to cover their costs. Netflix could charge me $20 a month if my high-speed connection was $5 a month, or even free, since they charge Netflix a nominal fee to deliver bits to me. As far as I know, no ISP has ever sold Internet connections that way. So for them to claim that both parties need to be charged for bits delivered is attempting to double charge on a bill of goods already sold. The argument is more like, "Somebody already paid for it!" and is quite valid. Your magazine example fails because the ads conceivably subsidize the cost of delivering the magazine to me. Without the ads, my pricing for the magazine would be higher. To be accurate to the argument, the magazine would need to charge full price for ads and not subsidize the cost of getting the magazine to me at all, charging me full price as well.

fredophile 12y ago

What if we look at it from the other side? Here's an argument that's very similar to yours: What is the source of the notion that, because Netflix paid for bandwidth, all bits are paid for and the charge for carrying them cannot be split with the other side of the connection? Why is it so bizarre that both sides of the connection have to pay for it? Because you're used to your phone working differently? As an analogy, you know how you used to pay for cable and the cable company paid money to stations they showed you? The TV station split its fee in two: the cable company paid part of it, and the advertisers paid the other part. It's the same here. If you're going to say that one side gets to charge at both ends what makes the receiving side special? Why shouldn't the side with the content get to double dip instead?

hga 12y ago
But it is split, or let me assure you, my AT&T ADSL connection is very much not free. TV is not apropos because in the US subscribers don't pay for it (compare to the U.K. "television license" and advertisement free BBC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Un... ); cable is paid for, and there are or at least have been commercial free channels on cable. That plus a lack of censoring was part of HBO's unique selling proposition after all.
- fredophile 12y ago
  What exactly is the point of your post? So far everyone has agreed that both the company hosting the server and the consumer are paying for their connections.

Spooky23 12y ago

You're presenting a valid argument, but I don't think that you can equate postal distribution system with the internet. The nature of the internet is such that it's a public network assembled out of a number of private networks. It works because these private networks meet at exchange points and transport each other's traffic at no cost. Everyone pays for access. The difference between the Internet and the USPS is that the post office is a closed loop where the sender pays to admit its payload into the network. The post office delivers mail to me at any volume -- I don't have to pay to receive mail. The whole point of the internet was to escape the rate tariff structure imposed by AT&T back in ye olden days.