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People keep claiming that there should be a "free market" for bandwidth...but then they say that the ISPs should have to absorb the costs of peering (which can

by timr 12y ago

People keep claiming that there should be a "free market" for bandwidth...but then they say that the ISPs should have to absorb the costs of peering (which can be significant -- the hardware isn't free) without passing the costs on to anyone. The backbone providers complain when the cost is passed to them; the consumers scream bloody murder when the costs are passed to them in the form of a bill. Obviously, there's no free market in the status quo: we (consumers) basically expect to pay a low, ever-declining price for bandwidth, while someone else eats the costs of a growing network infrastructure. There's an economic disconnect, and legislating that it shouldn't exist seems worse than futile. I say: pass the costs on to the consumer, and break down the monopolies on last-mile cable service. If the cable companies had to compete for subscribers, they could still pass on the costs of improving their infrastructure, but they'd have to compete with everyone else to do it. In other words, the problem here isn't "net neutrality" -- it's that we've got a monopoly at the last mile that we need to destroy.

Moral_ 12y ago
>which can be significant -- the hardware isn't free) without passing the costs on to anyone. I'm not trying to be rube but have you seen how much comcast/verizion/TWC customers pay? It's more than enough to string another switch and fiber line at a route point.
gph 12y ago
>basically expect to pay a low, ever-declining price for bandwidth, while someone else eats the costs of a growing network infrastructure Are we though? Our bills have only been increasing. The amount of money they put into infrastructure has decreased[1]. The Telecoms did have to put a lot of initial investment into infrastructure, but that was largely from laying the wires. Most of them are already starting to see positive returns on those investments [2]. They already have the infrastructure to support traffic to consumers in the last mile. The peering infrastructure being upgraded shouldn't cost them even 1/10th as much. So why should they get to pass their peering infrastructure costs on to the content providers? They should pass it on to the consumer if they must, after all it's us trying to get the content. But really they are going to be making such a large profit off us over the coming decades it's ridiculous for them to cry poor. Net neutrality is fairly meaningless when it comes to the last mile. I doubt hardly anyone is saturating their last mile worth of bandwidth. I regularly have three streams going in my household and it doesn't saturate my bandwidth. That part isn't what needs upgrading. [1]http://www.vox.com/2014/5/12/5711082/big-cable-says-broadband-investment-is-flourishing-but-their-own-data http://www.vox.com/2014/5/12/5711082/big-cable-says-broadban... [2]http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/15/does-cable-really-have-a-97-profit-margin/ http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/15/does-cable-really-have-a-9...
- runeks 12y ago
  > Are we though? Our bills have only been increasing. I would venture the guess that the price you pay per megabit has decreased. The problem is that the number of megabits you demand has increased faster than the price per megabit has decreased.
  - gph 12y ago
    >I would venture the guess that the price you pay per megabit has decreased. For me personally or on average? I'm a heavy usage user, but most my neighbors pay the same as me for using a lot less. My grandparents have basically the same service as me and all they use it for is email, some web games, and the occasional VOIP call and video. Considering that nowadays almost everyone has high-speed unlimited plans for the same price I might question whether the net per megabit price for ISPs has really gone up. At the very least I'd gamble to say that it hasn't been anywhere close to exponential or unsustainable for them to keep up with.
    - runeks 12y ago
      I can't speak for you, of course, but 10 years ago my parents paid more for a 256kbit/256kbit DSL connection than I pay now for a 35mbit/5mbit connection now. My (parents') connection back in 2003 (256/256 Kbit/s for 395 DKK per month): http://web.archive.org/web/20040604100538/http://www.cybercity.dk/privat/produkter/adsl/priser_og_produkter/ http://web.archive.org/web/20040604100538/http://www.cyberci... My connection now (35/5 Mbit for 279 DKK per month): http://www.fullrate.dk/privat/bredbaand/priser http://www.fullrate.dk/privat/bredbaand/priser That's 7.97 DKK per downstream megabit in 2014 versus 1580 DKK per downstream megabit in 2004. I very much doubt it has become 200 times cheaper per megabit/s in Denmark and actually more expensive in the US (or wherever you live).
      - gph 12y ago
        That's all bandwidth, not total data usage. I'm talking about price per actual megabit transmitted by the ISPs. It's not like you actually do 35/5 mbps every second of the day for the entire month. I'm in an east coast city in the US. I remember having had maybe 5/1 mbps 10 years ago. I wasn't paying the bills but I'm pretty sure it was like $50 per month from the TV commercials. Now I've got 25/10 for closer to $70 per month. Bandwidth wise it's risen a bit, but not really that much. Course I'm pulling down a lot more megabits per month in streaming content (though I was big into Napster/Torrents back then). But my point was that most people have upgraded to broadband from dial-up even if they don't really use it that much. Only the ISPs would really have the data, but I'd be surprised if the cost per megabit transmitted for them has gone up dramatically.
randomfool 12y ago
ISPs charge users for the bandwidth they consume (or you pay extra for an unlimited connection, which is often not really unlimited). So ISPs are already charging consumers for amount of data transferred, and consumers for the size of the pipe (maximum bandwidth).

by timr 12y ago

Moral_ 12y ago

>which can be significant -- the hardware isn't free) without passing the costs on to anyone. I'm not trying to be rube but have you seen how much comcast/verizion/TWC customers pay? It's more than enough to string another switch and fiber line at a route point.

gph 12y ago

>basically expect to pay a low, ever-declining price for bandwidth, while someone else eats the costs of a growing network infrastructure Are we though? Our bills have only been increasing. The amount of money they put into infrastructure has decreased[1]. The Telecoms did have to put a lot of initial investment into infrastructure, but that was largely from laying the wires. Most of them are already starting to see positive returns on those investments [2]. They already have the infrastructure to support traffic to consumers in the last mile. The peering infrastructure being upgraded shouldn't cost them even 1/10th as much. So why should they get to pass their peering infrastructure costs on to the content providers? They should pass it on to the consumer if they must, after all it's us trying to get the content. But really they are going to be making such a large profit off us over the coming decades it's ridiculous for them to cry poor. Net neutrality is fairly meaningless when it comes to the last mile. I doubt hardly anyone is saturating their last mile worth of bandwidth. I regularly have three streams going in my household and it doesn't saturate my bandwidth. That part isn't what needs upgrading. [1]http://www.vox.com/2014/5/12/5711082/big-cable-says-broadband-investment-is-flourishing-but-their-own-data http://www.vox.com/2014/5/12/5711082/big-cable-says-broadban... [2]http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/15/does-cable-really-have-a-97-profit-margin/ http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/15/does-cable-really-have-a-9...

runeks 12y ago
> Are we though? Our bills have only been increasing. I would venture the guess that the price you pay per megabit has decreased. The problem is that the number of megabits you demand has increased faster than the price per megabit has decreased.
- gph 12y ago
  >I would venture the guess that the price you pay per megabit has decreased. For me personally or on average? I'm a heavy usage user, but most my neighbors pay the same as me for using a lot less. My grandparents have basically the same service as me and all they use it for is email, some web games, and the occasional VOIP call and video. Considering that nowadays almost everyone has high-speed unlimited plans for the same price I might question whether the net per megabit price for ISPs has really gone up. At the very least I'd gamble to say that it hasn't been anywhere close to exponential or unsustainable for them to keep up with.
  - runeks 12y ago
    I can't speak for you, of course, but 10 years ago my parents paid more for a 256kbit/256kbit DSL connection than I pay now for a 35mbit/5mbit connection now. My (parents') connection back in 2003 (256/256 Kbit/s for 395 DKK per month): http://web.archive.org/web/20040604100538/http://www.cybercity.dk/privat/produkter/adsl/priser_og_produkter/ http://web.archive.org/web/20040604100538/http://www.cyberci... My connection now (35/5 Mbit for 279 DKK per month): http://www.fullrate.dk/privat/bredbaand/priser http://www.fullrate.dk/privat/bredbaand/priser That's 7.97 DKK per downstream megabit in 2014 versus 1580 DKK per downstream megabit in 2004. I very much doubt it has become 200 times cheaper per megabit/s in Denmark and actually more expensive in the US (or wherever you live).
    - gph 12y ago
      That's all bandwidth, not total data usage. I'm talking about price per actual megabit transmitted by the ISPs. It's not like you actually do 35/5 mbps every second of the day for the entire month. I'm in an east coast city in the US. I remember having had maybe 5/1 mbps 10 years ago. I wasn't paying the bills but I'm pretty sure it was like $50 per month from the TV commercials. Now I've got 25/10 for closer to $70 per month. Bandwidth wise it's risen a bit, but not really that much. Course I'm pulling down a lot more megabits per month in streaming content (though I was big into Napster/Torrents back then). But my point was that most people have upgraded to broadband from dial-up even if they don't really use it that much. Only the ISPs would really have the data, but I'd be surprised if the cost per megabit transmitted for them has gone up dramatically.

randomfool 12y ago

ISPs charge users for the bandwidth they consume (or you pay extra for an unlimited connection, which is often not really unlimited). So ISPs are already charging consumers for amount of data transferred, and consumers for the size of the pipe (maximum bandwidth).