Am I the only one who doesn't use streaming video and doesn't want my ISP rates to go up because a vast majority of the traffic they now have to deal with is video and their architecture needs to be built out in a way that it otherwise wouldn't?
The problem, as I see it, is that Verizon/Comcast (and other ISPs) are overselling, and the amount of traffic that Netflix is generating is showing that. Verizon sells X customers Y-bandwidth connections, but they don't have X*Y worth of uplinks, so they can't supply data to the people who want it.
Until now, this hasn't been a problem, because most people didn't max out their connections, and if they did they didn't do it for very long. The very nature of Netflix's business, though, is to serve the best traffic that the customer's connection can handle, and that starts to add up. Unfortunately, it adds up so much that in some cases (e.g. Comcast) you can't even serve VHS-quality content to all the customers who want it.
Because Verizon is overselling their bandwidth, they're now having issues where they can't service the demand that they sold their customers on. Instead of upgrading their upstream connections (which would cost them money, which they have a lot of), they want Netflix to pay for it. The logic is that Verizon wouldn't have these problems if Netflix weren't sending so much content; that argument breaks down when you consider that Verizon sold their services based on available bandwidth and now can't provide it; Netflix is just the service that exposed the problem.
Netflix has other solutions, though; they can provide servers that get hosted in the ISP's network to provide content to users without traffic coming from outside the ISPs' networks (thus freeing up their normal uplinks for regular traffic), or by peering with Netflix at various points (which accomplishes the same thing).
Unfortunately, neither of these solutions involves Netflix giving money to Verizon, which is why Verizon doesn't want to bother with going to the time and trouble when they can force Netflix to pay for their infrastructure upgrades instead.
All ISPs oversell; the two alternatives are (a) really low bandwidth for everyone, or (b) really expensive bandwidth with lots of wasted capacity that people seldom use. If you're arguing against contention, you're arguing for a massively inefficient allocation of money. This is basically a thin provisioning vs thick provisioning argument. Thin provisioning makes lots of sense when not everyone is using the maximum all the time, and especially when thick provisioning is expensive. Uncontended bandwidth is expensive.
If customers who watch Netflix are using more bandwidth on average than customers who don't watch Netflix, who should pay more?
If you think Netflix shouldn't pay more for their bandwidth (and then take it out of their customer), you're arguing that Verizon should pay for the extra bandwidth (and thus take it out of their customer).
The logical conclusion is that Netflix-watching users would be subsidized by non-Netflix-watching users.
Alternatives might be a special "Netflix" package sold by Verizon that has better quality interconnects to Netflix. Would you agree with that? Not very net-neutral though.
The statement that all ISP's over-sell is oversimplified.
All ISPs statistically multiplex the bandwidth requirements for off-net connectivity. Over-selling a peering relationship is impossible, as the ISP is selling only a speed-rated connection to it's own network. The assumption (or contractual service level) is generally that the ISP will augment either transit or peering as the resource becomes saturated.
The issue on hand is not the local or last mile bandwidth between the (retail) ISP and the customer, but the interconnection between the retail and the wholesale bandwidth providers. Two of the wholesale providers in question have publicly stated that their interconnections with specific retail providers are congested, and are not being augmented per their private contracts with the retail networks.
The above explanation is also a simplification, because for example Verizon is also a premium wholesale network in North America and several MSOs have also been building national transport networks.
If we're going with metering, I hope cable television watchers can join in the fun. If I subscribe for cable television and I only watch two hours a month, why should I subsidize someone who uses it 12 hours a day?
The argument based on costs is that it costs a cableco, or e.g. satellite company, no additional incremental cost to serve you and the 12 hours a day customer, all bits for all channels are broadcast to all customers.
Whereas each additional outside their net a la carte video stream does cost, if it's at a period of peak demand. The build out for peak demand is what costs, well, everyone, including the last mile ISPs, and video does tend to coincide with or now probably creates peak demand in evenings.
Some technical solutions like pulling during off peak and storing it for later viewing are unacceptable to content providers :-(, then again, none of this matters in a good way to a last mile company who very much wants you paying them for video rather than Netflix et. al., which is all of the big US ones except Century (formerly US Worst).
Interestingly, the last time I checked, a few years ago, one of CableOne's standard capping mechanisms was only for usage at peak periods....
> The argument based on costs is that it costs a cableco, or e.g. satellite company, no additional incremental cost to serve you and the 12 hours a day customer, all bits for all channels are broadcast to all customers.
Doesn't matter. The person watching 12 hours a day is getting a far greater value from their subscription than I am, which is the same reason the (generally all-encompassing, as opposed to peak metering) caps are being argued as fair, because of the value received.
Now of course all the ISPs policies make sense when you assume their motives are to kneecap a competitor and not to fairly price their service.
If you charged Netflix, they would consider investing more money on trying to reduce the bandwidth they use:
- innovative video codec
- better encoders
- new streaming technology
The ongoing costs to an ISP are not the costs of providing bits. Let me hand-wave a bit and say the 99th percentile of families is using 4 hours of Netflix per day, and that's about 1 GB per hour, so 120GB per month, which is maybe a few bucks of costs to the ISP.
The ongoing costs to an ISP are constantly building out and upgrading the network so that when we want to watch Netflix on Tuesday of next year at the peak hour we can. If there is metering or preference used, it should only apply at the peak times.
The problem isn't that they're overselling per se, the problem is the deception involved. They sill this "up to x megs" service, with the knowledge of that overselling in mind, they can't ever provide that speed. In effect, selling you "up to" some amount of bandwidth when it is mathematically impossible for you to get that amount, ever.
False advertising.
In a perfect world: I'd like to see a "broadband facts" that ISPs are required to provide, including average single-subscriber connection throughput to the their subscriber's top 100 sites, equivalent packet loss and jitter, amount of oversell (combined max subscriber rates vs uplink/downlink capacity). This data must be posted, prominently, on all sales literature and sites, and communicated verbally over phone. It must be updated no less than once per month.
I appreciate your POV that what you have now is "good enough" and it doesn't feel right to be taken along to support other people's habits. (And it's totally rotten you got downvoted.)
However, ISPs are a shared resource. Just like I tell people who act shocked when their speeds aren't guaranteed, sometimes the needs of the shared network override yours. You are getting a tremendous discount over a private line by bundling your whims with a bunch of your neighbors.
That said, if your current service is "good enough," you might try using wireless or DSL.
Probably you aren't the only one, but then again I don't, either.
It is a possibility (likelihood, even) that Verizon and other providers will raise rates, even though they aren't delivering on their commitments at current rates. I frankly consider residential ISP service providers who do what Verizon does to be in breach of the spirit of their contracts, even if the "best effort" language offers weasel-word loopholes out of being in breach (legal) of their contracts. I don't think they should be allowed to raise their rates until they demonstrate they can meet their current commitments under their current rate structures. But there is an infinitesimally small chance of regulatory, legislative, or court actions that will enforce that, especially in this country today, so I'm basically just waiting for the boost in monthly cost for my internet service.
Yes, you are the only one, or close enough that it makes little difference.
Back in Ye Olden Dayes, when techies were the main audience for technical products, we could reasonably expect offerings that catered to our needs. But for quite some time, the industry has been driven by mainstream consumers. E.g., the last smartphone built for a nerd audience was the Palm Treo. The current ones are all consumer focused.
We're along for the ride now, and video in particular has been a major driver for bandwidth demand.
It could be that there will be enough we-don't-need-much-bandwidth consumers that somebody will offer a not-good-enough-to-stream package that will be a better deal for you. But again, that's a consumer pricing option.
When video is consuming most of the internet transport links, it only makes sense that website operators should also shoulder rate hikes. /s
We who understand how the network works and what is actually happening to it and simultaneously observing the net-neutrality screaming of most people should take note. People do not behave rationally, nor do they care about anything nearly as much as their internet cat videos or "house of cards" episodes.
You are probably one of the few. But I wouldn't buy too much into the argument that their rates have to go up. Internet speeds are higher and congestion are lower in many other countries where their rates are cheaper. I think there is one reason and one reason alone for this. That reason is localized monopolies. Take a quick gander into the deals the ISPs cut with local government. Prepare to be disturbed.
I think there is one reason and one reason alone for this.
If there's "one reason," it's because the US is spread out. Of the countries with faster consumer Internet speeds than the US, the biggest in area is France, which is less than a tenth the size of the lower 48.
That said, local governments often suck. A few months ago Google just gave up on putting Google Fiber into San Francisco.
Take a quick gander into the deals the ISPs cut with local government. Prepare to be disturbed.
The limiting factor is not land area, but the marginal cost to serve an additional subscriber. It isn't the size of your graph, but the total cost of your spanning tree. The numbers involved are linear distances and number of nodes, not areas.
In most areas of the US, pre-existing infrastructure, such as improved roads and utility easements, makes serving additional customers relatively low cost. But monopolies and commodity suppliers operate at different supply points. A monopoly will intentionally reduce output below the point where marginal cost equals marginal revenue, to achieve higher prices and economic profits.
Leaving aside the concept of natural monopoly, that's the one reason. Most telecom markets are a local monopoly. Service sucks because the company providing it makes more money that way.
Land area and population density are red herrings. You need to measure the size of existing networks, such as roads, electric power, potable water and sewers, and divide those by the number of people served.
To use a car analogy, think about the Autobahn-style Interstate highway system. Before and after it was constructed, places remain the same absolute distance apart. But afterward, traveling between those places could take more or less time. Places that were previously adjacent might now require a detour via an overpass, whereas places previously distant might both have convenient on and off ramps. Travel times by car are thus determined by the roads network topology and not purely geographical distribution.
No, when trying to wire up a population, population density really really matters. The #1 and #2 countries for Internet speed are Singapore and Hong Kong.
Only in the sense that high population density makes minimal spanning trees very small indeed. The area simply is not relevant for wired coverage. Wireless links are another story, obviously, where antennas define a coverage area, but as long as the bits go through linear fibers, it simply does not matter how large someone's back yard is, or how far it extends from the front door. That area is irrelevant to the provision of service (unless someone lives on the other side of it).
The fastest data networks are wired, and even the wireless networks have linear backhaul.
By topology, a high-rise apartment building where everyone is within 100m of the utility closet on their floor is not all that different from a small town where most houses are within 100m of Main Street. The apartments have smaller area because people are stacked on top of each other. The total length of the cables and the equipment at the distribution nodes are still what matters.
You are removing a step in the causality chain. High population density causes efficient networks because all high-density areas incorporate their vertical space, by necessity. High-rise apartment and office buildings make it relatively easy to wire up a lot of people all at once.
But low population density does not necessarily imply a costly, inefficient network. The correlation between the two is stronger at the dense end of the scale. In the case where information about network topology is not available, population density may be used as a less accurate substitute, but your conclusions will likewise be less accurate, especially at the lower end of the scale.
Probably a closer approximation could be reached by looking at aerial photos of the places under comparison, adding up the total length of visible streets, and dividing population totals by that number, to get people per street-meter rather than people per square-meter.
> If there's "one reason," it's because the US is spread out.
Stop trotting this meme out. It's false.
South Korea invested 1.08 billion over about six years, from 1999 to 2005. They also deregulated, primarily around competition - direct competition is allowed between ISPs there (it is not here, usually due to locally determined monopoly status).
South Korea has a landmass of approximately 100,000 square kilometers. Which calculates out to about 10,000 invested per square kilometer.
From the mid 90s to the mid 00s, internet service providers received a sum of over 200 billion USD (some say as high as 300 billion USD) in direct and tax subsidies, with the understanding that they would build out fiber to the home. It never happened, for various reasons. But the point is we already tried subsidies to get it, and it didn't work.
According to the 2010 census, there are 486 urbanized areas and 3087 urban clusters. UAs are 50,000 or more people, UCs are at least 2,500 and less than 50,000 people. Pretty much covers everything from small towns in the middle of nowhere to large metropolitan areas like NYC but excludes Yosemite, most of Alaska, etc -- you know, the places where almost no one lives and probably don't even have cell reception. UAs and UCs combined, according to US Census data from 2010, cover 1,565,052.983 km^2. If we pretend that ISPs weren't planning on wiring up rural areas with fiber anyways, that means we spent $127,791 per square kilometer and got nothing for it. (For the record, the average population density of UAs and UCs together is 978.54/km^2). This would cover 80.7% of the total US population.
Per square kilometer of populated area, we spent over twelve times what South Korea did to get fiber to the home and got, basically, nothing for it.
I don't know the right answer, but I think the issue is more complex than the typical Netflix-good/ISP-bad dogma which is usually all I see in response to it and seems to be driven more by consumer sentiment for the respective companies than anything else.
If ISPs can't afford to upgrade their facilities to handle streaming video at the current rates, why do you assume ISPs would just raise the price of all plans across the board rather than create "streaming video" plans that cost more?
Maybe... I grew up in Tucson, and and about 40 years ago they wanted to put in some cross town freeways. A bunch of transplants complained "ohh we don't want to be like LA" and so the freeways weren't built... Did that stop people from moving to Tucson and cluttering up the roads there?
More people want to stream video. More people are using the internet on more devices (AND the ISPs are encouraging it!)
Doesn't matter if it is Netflix or not.
You probably are, for myself most of my internet traffic comes from streaming. Twitch/YouTube/Amazon etc. I rarely watch normal TV nowadays and i dont want to be bound to someone who decides when and what i have to watch.
And i expect that my ISP deliverers the internet speed i pay for and upgrade his infrastructure accordingly without raising prices.
Your advocacy in support of ISP monopolies will only end up costing you more should you be successful. What you pay your ISP has little to do with their infrastructure. Look at other countries with similar subscribers/km2. Rates you're paying are just profit (and lobbyists) from lack of competition.
