Level3 is without peer, now what to do? • Hacker News Board

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#261

Post by busterarm » Tue, May 20, 2014, 9:28 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #160

Jtsummers wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a big check, but they'd also be frustrated with Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Prime whom they also send money to each month (or year). The average customer wouldn't understand that it's the middleman causing problems, not one of the two endpoints (service provider or content provider).

If ABC has a blank channel, but you can still watch CBS and NBC and ESPN just fine, the average consumer will assume the problem is with ABC. If all the channels are blank, the average consumer will blame the cable company. Similarly, if "the Internet is down", from the customer's perspective, they're going to blame the ISP, not Netflix/Hulu/Amazon.

Not true. I work for a cable/fiber ISP. Customers always blame the ISP.

Even when the problem is the feed (like with CW's networks last month)...or when some dipshit construction company digs where they aren't supposed to.

Luckily I don't work for one of the horrible ISPs that everyone hates, but we're definitely more in the blame-receiving business than is warranted.

Folks don't understand the complexity involved in making a utility service "just work" and if the provider doesn't have hundreds of millions to invest in infrastructure (like my small provider doesn't have) it won't.

The big ISPs have no excuse for not peering properly, but this is a fight they've been having with Level3 since the late 90s. Sadly they're winning.

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#262

Post by swimfar » Tue, May 20, 2014, 9:29 PM UTC

alex_doom wrote: post #170

exelius wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how it should probably be done if we were starting from scratch. A system like the one you describe would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $300-500 billion; which isn't completely insane as far as national infrastructure projects go. The problem is that we're not starting from scratch. It's a lot harder for the government to justify that expense when there are a number of viable privately-owned alternati…

> if you had $500 billion to spend and you had to choose between overhauling the nation's education system (which desperately needs it) and providing better Internet access to people, which would you choose? They'll choose D. Build a new sportsball arena

That would be enough money for 500-1000 large stadiums.

Citi Field in New York: $900 million

Allianz Arena in Munich: 340€ million

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#263

Post by exelius » Tue, May 20, 2014, 9:33 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #245

exelius wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all well and good if you're talking about relatively wealthy cities like Sunnyvale with a good tax base, but many cities like Detroit, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are literally crumbling. They operate much more in a "try to keep the lights on" capacity because they just don't have the money to do anything else. The roads are constantly torn up from traffic and just never get fixed, water and sewer don't alway…

A couple of points, first I talked with a lawyer who works with/for the FCC and established that if the city isn't involved in lighting up the pipes they don't care what they do. The regulations would apply to ISPs using those pipes but it would not apply to the folks maintaining them. He used the example that companies like the old AboveNet which ran dark fiber from place to place and kept it maintained were not lia…

How do we know that wired broadband is even the answer? Wouldn't wireless connectivity be more attractive if the goal is social justice? Many lower-income homes don't own a PC, and at this point they probably never will. How attractive is a home PC to you if all you've ever known are smartphones?

Wired broadband, to me, is more of an entertainment consumption platform. Wireless serves the needs of low-bandwidth information consumption quite well these days, and at a significantly lower cost and better market dynamics. Wouldn't a city be better served by pushing Wi-Fi or 4G? Especially given the mass adoption of smartphones by all segments of the economy.

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#264

Post by gph » Tue, May 20, 2014, 9:35 PM UTC

runeks wrote: post #248

gph wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> 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.

>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.

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#265

Post by ChuckMcM » Tue, May 20, 2014, 9:36 PM UTC

rcthompson wrote: post #253

Nimi wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How do we craft regulation such that those companies are more profitable when they do what we want them to do?" Sounds like the U.S. already has such regulation - anti-trust regulation. As ChuckMcM noted above, the problem is that Comcast has a monopoly over the last mile. Effective and enforced anti-trust regulations would break up this monopoly into several different competing companies. BTW, here in Israel, the g…

Anti-trust laws are not ideal, though. They effectively act as thresholds or hard lower limits on allowed competition, but they don't directly address the economies of scale and barriers to entry that push the market toward a monopoly state.

True, the original impetus for the market monoply exclusions that exist today was to insure that someone coming into the market had a reasonable chance of making their money back. This encouraged people like Comcast to bring cable to the city. What has changed is that the Internet which was a 'ride along' on the Telephone and Cable monopolies has become more of a lifeline service. Further it has gone to the point where it supercedes both, since a home with a 1 - 3mbps Internet connection can get both phone and television services over it. This is the message that I'm bringing to the city, which is that Internet pipes have become like roads, essential for the citizens and the proper functioning of the city itself.

And given that, lets move the infrastructure into the same place, city owned/maintained raw pipes, company services accessible by those pipes.

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#266

Post by danielweber » Tue, May 20, 2014, 9:45 PM UTC

Jtsummers wrote: post #165

danielweber wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"97% profit margin" is a self-doubting figure. As soon as you hear it you should know that someone is trying to sell you something. It's like deciding Microsoft's profit margin based on the cost to physically acquire CD-ROMs.

Alright, perhaps I shouldn't have quoted that, but let's continue with the 2 edits of my post where I found real figures on revenue and costs. Video revenue is (in absolute terms) higher than internet revenue. Video revenue growth is slower than internet revenue growth. Video customer growth is actually shrinkage, they're losing customers (hundreds of thousands each year). Internet customer growth is actually growth…

The problem is that you can't model the ISP portion as something with fixed costs to build and then small marginal costs of moving bits around. Building it out is the primary cost to the ISP portion and we, the customers, rightly demand they keep on doing it. They have to always keep on building more capacity. You can't say "okay, now they have stopped building capacity, it's all rent-seeking from here."

The actual electrical cost to move the bits back and forth is nil. It's making sure that half the people in the neighborhood can use Netflix at 7pm two years from tomorrow that requires them to spend money today.

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#267

Post by runeks » Tue, May 20, 2014, 9:49 PM UTC

gph wrote: post #264

runeks wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

>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 th…

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.cyberci...

My connection now (35/5 Mbit for 279 DKK per month): 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).

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#268

Post by fredophile » Tue, May 20, 2014, 9:59 PM UTC

hga wrote: post #136

fredophile wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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_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…

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.

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#269

Post by wtallis » Tue, May 20, 2014, 10:00 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #263

ChuckMcM wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of points, first I talked with a lawyer who works with/for the FCC and established that if the city isn't involved in lighting up the pipes they don't care what they do. The regulations would apply to ISPs using those pipes but it would not apply to the folks maintaining them. He used the example that companies like the old AboveNet which ran dark fiber from place to place and kept it maintained were not lia…

How do we know that wired broadband is even the answer? Wouldn't wireless connectivity be more attractive if the goal is social justice? Many lower-income homes don't own a PC, and at this point they probably never will. How attractive is a home PC to you if all you've ever known are smartphones? Wired broadband, to me, is more of an entertainment consumption platform. Wireless serves the needs of low-bandwidth infor…

The laws of physics prohibit wireless from serving current needs in an urban density. It's not a solution for the future.

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#270

Post by specialp » Tue, May 20, 2014, 10:06 PM UTC

mhandley wrote: post #39

Would be very interesting to see what happened if the big CDN providers just depeered Comcast for 24 hours. Would certainly cost Comcast a fair amount in customer support calls, bad publicity, and properly bring the debate to the general public.

Well then all of the customers of said transit providers would leave and switch to one that can reach the millions of Comcast customers. As Level 3 said if there is a problem with peering amongst transit providers someone can switch to another provider. If there is a problem reaching Comcast customers there is nothing the customer can do or the transit provider as there is only one route to that customer. That is the leverage Comcast has now.

If the end users had multiple options they would switch providers if connections were unbearably slow to YouTube or Netflix. But we know they do not so regulation is needed.