

Google accused of YouTube ‘free ride’ - swombat
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8f5d6128-4400-11df-9235-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss

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DarkShikari
These people operate on some sort of bizarre moon logic. Youtube doesn't "eat
up your ISP's bandwidth", your _customers_ eat up your ISP's bandwidth by
_using Youtube_.

If electricity usage followed the same argument as they give, power plants
would be at fault for their electricity being used.

Of course, your customers can't always easily be extorted for hundreds of
millions of dollars, while (they think) Google can.

~~~
axod
Problem is that ISPs hate it when you actually use bandwidth.

I got an email from my ISP - BT, to say that I'd used 80GB of transfer for
March, and that if I went to 100GB, I'd have my speed capped for the next 30
days. This is on their (and I quote) "UNLIMITED" plan. bleurgg

~~~
dsplittgerber
Years ago, I saw lots of "unlimited" cell phone plan commercials in London,
every single one being subject to "fair use". How come it's that common in the
UK? I think there are close to none "fair use" plans in e.g. Germany. Why the
local differences?

~~~
axod
I think "unlimited" is just a word that gets people to buy something. It's not
economical to actually offer something with unlimited anything. Even if you
buy a dedicated server with "unlimited" transfer, it'll be limited by the
connection speed - eg 10mbps uplink "unlimited bandwidth" works out at less
than 5TB total transfer per month.

Same with the magic word "free". You'll often see that used such as "free
mobile phone (small print: when you sign up to a contract at £19/month)" etc.

Are there _true_ unlimited plans in Germany that aren't subject to _any_
limits then?

~~~
seles
This is what at&t/apple does with their 'unlimited' iphone subscription. It
might be unlimited but they try their best to stop you from using any actual
bandwidth (tethering etc.)

Google has had to take a lot shit lately from non free speech and non free
market ideologies.

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c1sc0
"Some European telecoms groups fear Google will reduce them to “dumb pipes”" :
yes Google, PLEASE do us that favor. Telecom's business should be to transport
bits from point A to point B, nothing more, nothing less.

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mcherm
News Flash: telecom company whines "Our customers pay us every month to allow
them to connect to YouTube, but YouTube is owned by Google, who is rich, and
Google isn't paying us anything on top of what our customers pay us. Boo hoo
hoo!"

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meroliph
I believe this is more related to some of the peering relationships Google
currently has. While it was a good idea to peer with Google in the past to
benefit your customers, right now they are probably upset that their free
peering arrangements are putting quite a bit of stress on their networks and
it is quite understandable to want to start charging some money.

~~~
charliesome
This is quite a good argument. If they have entered into a peering agreement
then Google is freeloading off their services. However, an agreement is an
agreement and the telco can't just pussy out because it's turned sour for them

~~~
kierank
Then they should cancel the peering agreement and pay transit charges to reach
Google...and also reduce the quality of service that the customer receives
when watching Youtube. Most peering agreements are relatively informal anyway.

For the larger providers reaching Google through transit routes, such transit
would jeopardise other peering relationships which rely on traffic being
balanced.

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dkokelley
Aren't the telecoms hitching a free ride? I mean we all upload our videos to
YouTube and Google so graciously hosts them for us, but the telecoms get to
charge fees to their customers who want to watch these videos. Google should
ask for some compensation for providing the content the telecoms need in order
to sell their services.

Here are some quotes that have been changed to reflect the same logic applied
the other way:

“These guys _[telecoms]_ are using the content and they don’t pay anybody.”

"Let’s see the development of digital society in terms of the winners and the
victims. And today, there is a winner who _are the telecoms_. There are
victims that are content providers, and to a certain extent, _YouTube_. We
cannot accept this."

*Bolded items have been changed.

Honestly, that's the same logic being used in the opposite direction. I could
do this with almost every quote in that story.

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adolph
I read the paper version of this and the other articles on the page had a
similar bizarro-world quality to them. It took some time to see some logic to
the ISP POV, which I think the article doesn't do justice.

Forget for a moment any notion of fairness or the traditional arrangement of
customer > ISP > Internet as a whole. Take a look at the arrangement in terms
of value transfer (give) and extraction (take).

The consumer-oriented ISPs give network connectivity (and maybe some other
ancillary services such as an email account, anti-virus, NNTP, etc.) and take
money from customers.

Google gives content (search may be more important to users, but content such
as video is the focus in this case) and takes eyeballs on ads.

There is no formal connection between Google and the ISPs. There are two
important informal connections: 1. Without Google (or other similar entities),
the product of the consumer oriented ISP would be much less valuable to the
customer. 2. Without the ISPs, Google has no way of giving its content or
taking its eyeballs on ads.

At present, the ISPs perceive an asymmetry in revenue between [them and the
consumer] and [Google and the consumer]. They are interested in connecting the
dots from Google to the ISP in a more formal way. The only question is who has
more to lose by pursuing their point.

Google can't take value from the customer without the ISPs. The ISPs' will
offer less value to the customer without Google. Will an ISP without Google
provide enough value to the customer to justify operating that way?

The relationship between each entity is not totally unfettered. The regulatory
environment must also be considered. If the ISPs annoy the customers too much,
there may be regulatory change (such as Network Neutrality, etc.). This in of
itself may be good or bad for the ISPs and their complaints and threats
regarding Google may be a diversion for the purpose of increasing their
government supported monopoly power.

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viraptor
That's an interesting quote: "Some European telecoms groups fear Google will
reduce them to “dumb pipes”". I wonder what description would they prefer now
- especially what do they want to offer above the "dumb pipe" standard?

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Asa-Nisse
Fine, the telecoms can start taking payments from their customers to access
youtube then. Lets see how many customers they'll get with that kind of deal.
We (the users) already pays for the networks. This article is complete
bullshit.

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kierank
_Mr Alierta said that if no revenue sharing agreement was possible between the
internet search engines led by Google and the network operators, regulators
should supervise a settlement._

This is what strikes me as disturbing. Peering has been one of the success
stories of an unregulated internet infrastructure in contrast to the hugely
complicated PSTN system with all manner of complicated charging schemes. In
this instance getting regulators involved would almost certainly complicate
things. Bureaucrats won't understand the myriad of informal relationships that
underpin the peering that runs the internet.

~~~
adolph
Peering strikes me as akin to free trade between countries. Can peering
relationships survive large imbalances? If packets were trade and peering
relationships borders, who are the net exporters and importers?

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nazgulnarsil
the telcos don't want the public to perceive them as "dumb pipes" because
fungible commodities are subject to much fiercer competition.

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jonknee
If either party should be paying it should be the telcos. No one needs to pay
for monthly Internet access without content to access. They'll find that out
the first week they drop Google.

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9point6
Dumb Pipes? No. They're a series of tubes.

