It's the Architecture, Stupid 104
Thanks to Lawrence Lessig for sending us a filing that he and Mark Lemley have put before the FCC. The filing, also in PDF, deals with open access as well as principles of network design. It's a long piece, but well worth reading.Thanks to Lawrence for another link.
Where have I heard that name? (Score:1)
The reason I know the name Lawrence Lessig is from the last Microsoft trial, right? Where MS wanted to disqualify him because they thought he was to cozy with Netscape? And now he's in with
Re:Private property doesn't seem to count (Score:1)
So? (Score:1)
Regulation
Pardom my libertarianism, but the Internet has done just fine without any regulation. It was conceived as an open model, developed as such, and still tends to exist as such to a wide extent. So why all the fuss? Does the transition from a publically funded and maintained architecture (NSFNET, NYSERnet, etc.) to a commercial one (Sprint, MCI) necessitate regulation? I don't think so. As long as the environment is competitive and the Internet continues to grow as it has been, I don't foresee any problems.
Re:Private property doesn't seem to count (Score:3)
Then, there is another point you need to consider. A service exists to serve. It has no other purpose. Nor should it have. Every service that puts short-term profits, or the whims of it's shareholders, above it's customers and products has invariably collapsed.
This, in itself, wouldn't be an issue if it existed in a vaccuum. But nothing in life does. If something the size of AT&T destroys itself, in an orgy of profiteering, it's liable to destroy the larger percentage of the telecommunications services in the US, on which modern lives are very dependent. (The emergency services depend on these facilities, for example, as do many hospitals, research facilities, etc.)
Last, but not least, Slashdot does not have an attitude. Slashdot is a collection of bytes in a computer's memory. Slashdot's admins may have their own attitudes and opinions, but each will have their own. The same is true of the readers. We are ALL individuals, and ALL different, in our views, political persuasions, religious beliefs, ethical and moral values, etc. To blanket everyone as this mysterious "THEM" with the "Attitude" is to do a terrible disservice to the diverse, multicultural segment of humanity that comprise the people who inhabit the Slashdot news service.
Were the "Net Libertarians" Born Yesterday? (Score:2)
Remember Compuserve, Prodigy, and AOL before they were ISPs? Where are they now? They promised "e-shopping" and "online information" in the early 80's. Instead, nothing happened until the Internet opened up in the mid-90's (and yes, you should thank Al Gore). The Internet developed as a free (libre) network because its public funding allowed it that agenda.
What I see today is a lot of people saying,"Thanks, Uncle Sam for making this great network... now get the hell out of it so we can strangle it to death in the name of the almighty dollar." I can't believe that the so-called "voices of freedom" are demanding that corporate interests be allowed to achieve levels of control that would be dangerous to said freedom. AOL already controls more media time than prime-time television. Good for them, but doesn't that make any of you a little nervous that they might begin to abuse that power?
Microsoft is not the only company that practices "embrace and extend."
Is your site AOL approved?
Re:So? (Score:4)
And then, there are the internally-imposed regulations that the Internet has:
Then, there are the Ethernet packets. Formally specified. Deviate, and your device is not capable of connection to an Ethernet network. Same with ATM (Asynch Transfer Mode, to Americans who might confuse this with their bank machine).
Sprint's takeover of some of the NSFNET resulted in a 2 week collapse of all transatlantic services, so I'd think ==VERY== carefully before citing them as a good example of deregulation.
Re:So? (Score:2)
Done
but the Internet has done just fine without any regulation. It was conceived as an open model, developed as such, and still tends to exist as such to a wide extent. So why all the fuss?
In principle, I agree with you. I'm only about half way through reading the paper, but from what I've gathered so far, I think they would agree with you too.
What they seem to be saying is that this merger (in a way they haven't explained yet) threatens the open nature of the net as we currently know it, and that a little bit of regulation now may be a far preferable alternative to a lot of regulation later.
It seems to me that so long as the protocols and the underlying network architecture are not controlled by one source (remember, the network was originally designed to withstand a nuclear attack...), things should go more or less okay.
Time to finish reading it...
Anthony
^X^X
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
Re:Private property doesn't seem to count (Score:1)
put another way, they've been given a legal monopoly. as a result, it's rather disingenuous to say they have assumed much risk in laying the cable.
Just The Latest AOL Shilling from slashdot (Score:1)
How about this guys:
-- The existing cable infrastructure is obsolete and needs serious upgrades to make it work with high speed data.
-- This upgrade will cost many billions and will entail tremendous amounts of risk. Cable modems and cable telephony could fall flat in favor of DSL or some future technology, leaving AT&T holding the bag on billions in invested capital.
-- AOL is a multi-mega billion company that could easily afford to throw a couple bil AT&T's way in order to help pay for this and have some skin in the game. How much you wanna bet AT&T would be glad for some investment like this and would open their lines in return
-- Telephone companies have been forced to resell local loops, but those same companies are also getting let into the LD business are part of the deal. AT&T would get nothing in return for having to open up its line.
I sure wish slashdot would get their tongues out of AOL's butt.
Re:So? (Score:1)
Democracy is supposed to be a government of the people, for the people, by the people.
Could that perhaps mean that the government might actually stand up for the people as a defense against big business?
The internet was created by government. Government is prosecuting M$ because they felt they were hurting the choices of the people. They did the same with IBM, Standard Oil and others.
Perhaps its time we started realising how the government can serve us and start using them to help us.
If you don't like the government then vote them out, move or start a revolution.
The Risk/Reward Argument (Score:1)
- Cause and effect...you take the risk, you get the benefit. You lay the cable, you make the rules.
Here's the simple response:Fine. You connect to the Internet, then we (the taxpayers who funded it) make the rules in the form of regulations put forth by our representatived in goverment. If those who own the cable find those rule onerous, then they can create their own private network. No Yahoo. No Slashdot. No ETrade. Just whatever they can come up with. I'll bet they'll get a ton of subscribers on that network.
Meanwhile, people who don't mind playing by the rules can enjoy the Internet boom with the rest of us.
(Whohoo! 17th post!)
Infrastructure vs. ISP's (Score:5)
The concern here is that AT&T, an infrastructure provider, is merging with MediaOne, an ISP to provide a bundled infrastructure + IP address commercial package. Sounds fine, right? Well, stop to think about it.
Say your ISP blocks port 6667 (the most common IRC port) for some reason -- say liability concerns about the legality of IRC activity. Or say they don't want you connecting to any USENET servers but their own, so they block port 119 (the NNTP port) connections to all servers except theirs. You'd soon ditch them and move to another ISP, wouldn't you? And you'd stop paying the first ISP, because you weren't using their services anymore.
And there's the rub.
If AT&T is allowed to bundle its infrastructure service with MediaOne's ISP service, you'll be paying for MediaOne whether you use it or not. It would be like bundling an OS with your new computer so that you paid for the OS whether you wanted it or not (<sarcasm>which I'm sure has never happened...</sarcasm>). Say MediaOne starts blocking the ports used for IP telephony -- after all, that's a direct competitor to AT&T's primary business. Suddenly, millions of MediaOne customers are forced either to switch to another ISP or give up using IP telephony. And if they switch to another ISP, they're still paying for MediaOne! Don't want to pay for MediaOne? Sorry -- it comes with your DSL connection; if you don't want MediaOne, you're going to have to find another DSL service. What? There aren't any other DSL providers in your area? That's just too bad. At least with the Wintel hardware/OS bundling, you had other choices -- you could buy a Mac, or an Amiga, or a Sparc, or... But with this situation, you'll be forced to pay for MediaOne -- and how many people will choose to pay *extra* for another ISP? Very few -- most, in the scenario I describe, would choose instead to give up IP telephony.
And that's what the concern is. If AT&T is allowed to bundle ISP services with infrastructure services, it can kill any use of the network it doesn't like, by doing things like I just described. That's why this paper is important, and why infrastructure needs to be kept separate from Internet access.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Re:So? (Score:2)
Er, most people access the internet via dialup modem lines, and ISPs use leased lines to aggregate packets off to their NAPs.. How much more $$$ would it cost to access the internet in this country if we hadn't had Ma Bell deconstructed?
Look at countries outside the US: where the telco is a monopoly (state or otherwise) adoption of the internet is much slower and more expensive..
Any way you slice it, you can't argue with the results.
And I tend to be a realist, not a libertarian. Government is useful if it can be trusted, and it could be, if we weren't so fucking complacent and apathetic... (in a Democracy, you should get the government you demand, but in the days of 30% voter turnout, you get the government you deserve... And there's nothing in the Constitution delineating only 2 parties...)
Your Working Boy,
Re:The Risk/Reward Argument (Score:1)
Re:Private property doesn't seem to count (Score:1)
YES! WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS!
Follow the SHOE!!!!!
Your Working Boy,
Re:Well gee (Score:1)
It's good that few cities now give their cable companies an exclusive franchise. Competitors can come in. DSL competes with cable modems. DBS with cable TV. That's what will improve service, not regulation.
Re:So? (Score:1)
Letter contradicts itself (Score:2)
This entire argument seems hokey to me. At most, it seems to me that AT&T should allow users to say "I don't want to use AT&T's web servers or usenet servers or mail servers. Please take $15 off my monthly bill." The user could then configure their software to point to somebody else's servers.
This repeatedly goes back to my point (made in this space before) that ISPs are an anachronism caused by trying to route a packet-based network over a switched network: You have to have gateways that convert from one to the other. This, currently, is the main function of ISPs. In a world where you don't need the gateway -- ie where the packet-based network extends all the way to the machines that want to see it (as is the case with packet-over-cable), then the main purpose of the ISP goes away.
Now, I would argue that if Mindspring & AOL want to stay relevant, they need to transform themselves into "ASPs" -- Application Service Providers. At the low end, this means running the same servers that the ISPs ran before -- mail, usenet, web, &c. But, there's a lot of opportunity beyond that -- PC backup services, video servers, network file storage and so on. These are the logical place for the ISPs to move into. But, they're so entrenched in what they've been doing that they can't see to move beyond it.
Re:So? (Score:1)
Algore ain't my daddy (Score:1)
I use Windows "monopoly" software. I don't use AOL "monopoly" Internet access or sites. In fact, I can't remember the last time I did AOL anything on the Internet. I'm sure that if I used a Mac (which I once did) I would have equally little to do with Microsoft.
I find it very hard to believe government involvement won't simply bring taxation where there was none before, and screw things up worse than the worst scenario sketched out here. Nobody will dominate the Internet. Not Microsoft, not AOL, not Intel, not Cisco, not AT&T. All will have a significant role, maybe even a dominant role in some aspect of it, but no real overall dominance. Only a government could achieve that.
Wrong (Score:2)
That statement is patently false.
The Internet has benefited *greatly* from regulation. Read the whole filing, it actually details it quite well. If it hadn't been for the regulatory actions of breaking up AT&T/Ma Bell, the Internet likely would not have existed in anywhere near the form it does today. Why? Because AT&T would have restricted, and was restricting, use of *their* network for uses which they didn't like.
Open Access in telco's set up a very competitive environment where ISP's were able to vigorously compete. ISP's are not allowed to vigorously compete in broadband access at this point (primarily because most broadband access is on cable modems, secondarily because the telco's are fighting much the same way...just not as publicly, and with less regulatory justification, and with somewhat less success).
Jeff
Re:Private property doesn't seem to count (Score:2)
Who is providing the service? The supplier. In this case, companies such as AT&T.
Who should benefit from providing the service? The consumer. First, last and always.
This may sound "utopian", but it isn't. It's practical recognition of symbiotic relationships. No customers, no company. No company, no consumers. Each lives off the products of the other. (Money from the consumer, the service from the company.)
But for a symbiotic relationship to remain stable and survive, each must focus on what they're giving, not on what they're getting. Otherwise, the relationship becomes unstable, and can collapse completely, in mutual mistrust and suspicion.
(By the by, this is why 99% of all relationships between people fail. They're too busy focussing on what they're getting - or not - that they've no time left to give.)
Re:So? (Score:2)
Re:So? (Score:2)
Thank you... I'm glad someone said this.
There is no reason why the government in a democracy has to be such a mess. Sure, the US gov't is somewhat of one, but that's because of the lack of people voting, and the lack of paying attention to what the politicans are really doing.
They'd stop being "bought" by corporations if the public made it clear that doing so meant they never were back into office. They'd serve the people if the people made it worthwhile.
I see libertarianism as a means of allowing corporations to control the public instead of the government - and we won;t get a vote in that aspect. I know that's not the intentions, but I think it will be the resulting effect.
A little bit of regulation now, a little slap on the hand saying "don't do that", will keep us from having to carve everything apart later and look at a means of bring innovation back to the internet.
When your only option for getting the access is through a company that strictly regulates what you can use it for, then there's not going to be much incentive to try new things.
Would you use a provider that tells you "you can only use e-mail, the web, and irc" through your cable connection, and your other choice is a 28.8 modem, what good is that?
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Summary, And Some Choice Bits (Score:3)
The model proposed apparently does not allow the user to select an ISP, and the authors argue that this may unfairly (to consumers) limit the types of services available in the future, and possibly allow the AT&T/MediaOne merger to create a monopoly on services they feel ISPs should be providing.
"By bundling ISP service with access, and by not permitting users to select another ISP, the architecture removes ISP competition within the residential broadband cable market. By removing this competition, the architecture removes an important threat to any strategic behavior that AT&T might engage in once a merger is complete."
They go on to explain how this represents a threat to the very kind of open-ness that has made the internet great so far.
Interesting to note that they don't seem like the type who would actually ask for regulation. They seem to consider it as a necessary evil at this stage of the development of the net. I tend to agree, letting things get out of control (if they're right) would only mean even more regulation later.
Look, they gave us props:
35. This is not to say that the government created the innovation that the Internet has enjoyed. Nor is it to endorse government, rather than private, development of Internet-related technologies. Obviously, the extraordinary innovation of the Internet arises from the creativity of private actors from around the world. Some of these actors work within corporations. Some of the most important have been associated with the Free Software, and Open Source Software Movements. And some have been entrepreneurs operating outside of any specific structure. But the creativity that these innovators have produced would not have been enabled but for the opening of the communications network. Our only point is that the government had a significant role in that opening.
Anthony
^X^X
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
Re:Well gee (Score:2)
...
The answer is usually more competition, not more regulation.
Your logic here is schizophrenic. Cable being lame is not the case because it's so heavily regulated by the government, it's lame because CABLE COMPANIES HAVE MONOPOLIES ON CABLE SERVICE IN LOCAL COMMUNITIES!!! If anything, there should be a refocus of regulation to emphasize competition and common-access to cable infrastructure. Eminent domain it if all else fails..
The answer truly is more competition, and whenever necessary the FedGov should force it so states and local communities can't get all cozy with local and regional monopolistic cable franchises.. The FedGov should in fact force competition in every non-competitive area of life now! Utilities, Professional sports, Software, CPUs, Currency printing, everything... Open it all up!
I'm a free market realist, meaning that I want a free market, by hook or by crook... Because I'm a smart and greedy consumer, who wants to be able to research as many options as possible before selecting the best price/performance on anything I need...
Your Working Boy,
Aaron still doesn't get it ;) (Score:2)
>-- The existing cable infrastructure is obsolete and needs serious upgrades to make it work with high speed data.
(rest deleted for brevity)
This argument would have some merit, *except*, I've never heard *anyone* express the idea that ISPs and others should be able to have access to the cable network (or DSL access) without compensation to the company that owns the infrastructure. I wholeheartedly support compensation for Insight (where I live) for the ISP that I work for providing cable modem service over their lines.
If they've computed in their excel spreadsheets to cover the costs of their infrastructure build-out by the revenues of their ISP's, then they're dumb.
The ISP that I work for is providing DSL service in a city with GTE as the telco...its going quite well. The structure works that the end-customer calls GTE to get DSL service (comparable to calling Insight to get cable modem service), then they call us to get the Internet/ISP service. The customer is billed by GTE for the DSL service, and they're billed by us for the Internet/ISP service. Everyone is happy, DSL is going great guns in that city. There is no reason that the same couldn't work with cable modems. The customer calls Insight (or whoever) to get the cable modem access...chooses their ISP and calls that ISP to get the Internet/ISP access, the customer is then billed by the cable company for the cable modem access (to cover the cost of the infrastructure buildout), and then pays the ISP for the Internet/ISP access.
Jeff
Re:So? (Score:1)
Re:So? (Score:1)
Agreed. A pure democracy would, IMHO, rather quickly crumble from the horrible infighting, persecution, etc. One by one, each minority would be eliminated by the majority.
Too bad we don't have a government in the US that really stands up for the minorities. Because the government is "of the people", instead of fighting the people to protect the minorities, they're trying to legislate to "protect" the majority - and the majority is the one group that never needs protection.
Example? Gay marriages. These "defense of marriage" acts are nothing more than an attempt by the majority to discriminate against that minority. It harms absolutely nothing to allow them to occur. It's just the majority (especially the so-called (im)"Moral Majority") trying to exert power and control.
We have made a lot of headway in the past, as women have gained rights and the vote, non-whites have gained rights and the vote, etc. And I do think we'll continue to increase the number of minorities that are included equally. But we'll have to fight for it.
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Re:Aaron still doesn't get it ;) (Score:1)
Maybe it's just me (Score:2)
All I want is an IP Address. That's it. Everything else, I can deal with:
E-mail? Hook up a copy of sendmail.
Web? Run Apache if I want to serve pages.
There's no service out there i need that I cannot get, all I need is an address on the network. That, IMHO, is the primary function of the ISP. Everything else is just nice to have.
If you're buying high speed connection, usually you get an IP along with that, right? What do I need any of their servers for, except for possibly DNS? (since having a massive database sitting around doesn't appeal to me)
Provide me an address and a way to look up other addresses. I'm happy then. Unless there's something else I don't know about (which is probably true).
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Re:Well gee (Score:1)
1. Cable companies do not have monopolies in most areas today. Competitive franchises are being awarding in cities across America. Ameritech (the midwest phone company) has a couple hundred competitive franchises I think. 21st Century is wiring the Chicago lakefront with competitive cable. The days of monopoly are soon over.
2. "Cable" is not the service. TV channels, internet, phone, and perhaps more broadly entertainment, are. Cable companies have competition in all areas. Look at the millions of DBS dishes sold recently. Once the (gov't imposed) restrictions on carrying local channels is lift, I expect that market to explode.
Re:The Risk/Reward Argument (Score:2)
Not nearly that at all. Try again.
If we want to make the analogy correct, then the government built the roads, so they make the rules. If you want to drive them, you follow them - you drive the speed limit, get a license plate, etc. If the government decides that anyone who drives also needs to let anyone who wants park in your garage and sleep in your house, then you need to follow that - but at this point they haven't decided that.
The regulation is to prevent a corporation from buying up a large chunk of the roads, and then telling you that you can only carry certain things in your car, that you can only have so many people inside it, and you can only drive it a certain amount. And they own enough of the roads so that you don't have the option of driving only on competitor's roads, so you don't have a choice.
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Re:So? (Score:1)
Cable Modem access lame (Score:1)
Too bad that cable modem internet access is *not* regulated by the gov. @Home can put pretty much whatever restrictions on your cable access they want...what's your choice? BellSouth DSL (not much better), or back to an ISDN line. Hrmm...
The falacy that I see a lot of people perpetrating is that cable modem access for some inherent reason should/has to be tied to a specific ISP (I see some of the same falacious arguments with regards to DSL...specifically with BellSouth). These are (at least) two different services. One service being the service of wiring your community for cable access, and the other service being an Internet access that is provided over whatever access method is available to the consumer. The ISP I work for doesn't want to be a cable company or a telephone company...but the current setup by the cable company and telco's where we are almost require that to be able to offer broadband service. We want to bring business to BellSouth and Insight...and they're not letting us! It truly boggles my mind.
Jeff
Re:Infrastructure vs. ISP's (Score:2)
I agree with you in principle, but you overlooked on point even though it was in your post. ISPs currently pay for their use of the POTS or ISDN infrastructure. The issue here is that AOL and others want free (as in beer) access to the new, faster infrastructure.
AT&T's primary goal is to be a carrier, not a content provider that's why AT&T sold DirectTV a while back. AT&T acquired TCI to get infrastructure (in the form of wires as well as trucks, vans, equipment, and employees). Since TCI owned content as well that came along for the ride, although much of the content production trades separately on the stock market as Liberty Media.
AT&T has repeatedly stated that it is willing to sell capacity on the cable infrastructure to content providers (i.e. ISPs) that want it. The only issue is that TCI had signed a contract with @Home giving them exclusive rights to provide ISP service over TCI's cable. As part of the acquisition of TCI, AT&T became bound by this contract. Since this contract has been found to be legal and binding, AT&T would be open to a lawsuit from @Home if they allow other ISPs to use their cable lines within the period of the contract (a couple more years I think)
If there were a legal way out of this contract AT&T would gladly let other ISPs deliver service over their cable lines since more content leads to more demand. AT&T markets phone service in partnership with a variety of other companies and organizations and would be glad to have dozens or even hundreds of special interest ISPs doing targeted marketing and paying AT&T for the infrastructure.
What AT&T is not willing to do is grant "open" (as in free) to anyone who petitions the government. Much of TCI's cable was crap and is being upgraded by AT&T. This costs money. If AOL or anyone else wants to send their traffic over the lines that AT&T is paying to upgrade they should be willing to pay a fair share. The whole "open access" debate is simply a ploy to get the government give away the infrastructure that AT&T is paying for.
Re:So? (Score:1)
Re:The Risk/Reward Argument (Score:1)
AT&T builds/upgrades cable infrastructure (the roads) so they get to make the rules. Okay, the rules: You are required to lease a car from us to drive on our roads. If you have your own car, you still have to pay for a lease from us with no discount. And you also can only use our gasoline.
The gov't built the roads, but they're not requiring you to buy a car from them to drive on them. I think that's where that argument breaks down. We pay for roads (in the form of taxes or tolls), so we can use them *with our existing vehicles*. An End-to-End solution, as the paper describes. Separate the road builders from the car manufacturers, and let the car manufacturers work on their value-adding, rather than being stuck with a Model T that's any color, as long as it's black.
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Re:The Risk/Reward Argument (Score:1)
- The government built the roads, so they make the rules. And if you wanna drive on them, you've got to let anyone who wants to park in your garage and sleep in your house. That's about what your "logic" boils to.
Isn't it a little early in the day to start smoking crack?The government did build the roads and they do make the rules. Try running stop signs and speeding in front of our friendly law enforcement officials and see how they respond.
I don't think that driving on the roads obligates me to open my garage or house in any way -- the laws governing use of the roads do not require this. Perhaps, if you should have your representative propose such a law just to teach liberals like me a lesson. Unfortunately, my representatives (and everyone else's probably) will vote against it and it will not pass. Good thing because it would be a voilation of the 4th Amendment barring "unreasonable seizure" of my property. Oh damn, that's another one of those damn laws you hate so much. Why oh why can't people be free to unreasonably seize things?!! It's so Stalinist!!!!
That's representative democracy. Read up on it when the drugs wear off.
Re:So? (Score:2)
Re:Aaron still doesn't get it ;) (Score:1)
You seem to forget that AOL isn't the only ISP in existance. Take a look at xDSL services for an example, here in St. Louis, I when I signed up after something like a week of it being offered there was something like 5 ISP's including SouthWestern Bell (who provides the DSL line) that I could find in just a couple of minutes. Today (just a few months later) the list has grown and I can barely open a newspaper or watching TV without seeing an add from something like "Joe's discount ISP service" offering DSL connections.
Broadband access is a big buzzword today. Cheap and inexpensive (for the bandwidth) high bandwidth 24/7 never worry about having to dialup and getting the "busy signal". It's taking off in a really big way in just the last few months. Cable modems have a huge advantage in that it's only real competitor right now is xDSL but there is those really annoying distance limitations. I know quite a few people that have cable modem service just because they were too far away from the telco for xDSL. Who wouldn't want a part of that action?
Just my two cents.
Re:So? (Score:2)
Or, did you pay someone *who has a license* to let you use their fiber optic cable?
Re:Maybe it's just me (Score:1)
just a thought -- I don't think they're going to try to do it (they'd be morons to jepordize their common carrier status) but we've seen other moves like this before...
Lea
Re:Maybe it's just me (Score:1)
That may be true for you, but not the vast majority (18+ million) of Internet users who use AOL or some similar service. Their knowledge of computers and networking is not sophisticated enough to allow them to configure sendmail, Apache, etc. They need to have their hands held.
Also, on the "all I need is an IP" argument... I have DSL. I pay my Telco. a monthly fee for the service. I pay another company, my ISP a monthly fee for Internet service. The ISP provides me with a connection to the Internet and the all important IP address. I could have gotten the IP from my Telco., but I didn't like their policy on assigning them. (The Telco. uses dhcp while the ISP I chose assigned me a number that stays my number for as long as I'm their customer.)
The ISP also provides POP e-mail, a few megs of web space and Usenet feeds. Granted, I could set up my own e-mail, my own web server, and even get a Usenet feed from another party and host my own Usenet groups. I still use my ISP's services because it saves me time, effort, and I'm paying for them anyway just to get my IP number.
The point is, you need that IP number, as you, yourself pointed out. Do you want to be locked into one company's policies for how you use it, or do you want a choice?
Re:Well gee (Score:1)
Couple of comments. First I should not that I haven't read the paper. I have seen papers like this in the past and expect to see more in the future. Second, I should not that I have worked for AT&T and have been actively involved with modems and data transmitions since the early 80's. Third, I currently do not own stock and am not employee'd by a telecommunications company. That said...
Deregulation of the cable services just took place this year. June or July I think. The big problem for most of the litigation against ATT at the moment is from "grassroots" organizations that somehow seem to be orginized and paid for by the baby bell's.
The way I see it, and until I see something different is this. The baby bells still have monopolies in their regions. Allowing high speed data connections via cable breaks their monopoly and they want to stop this. Consider, DSL technology has been available since '91 as an effecient and cost effective way of transfering information. I have been waiting since that time for DSL to hit the market, but it never has. Then Cable modems start hitting the market. All of a sudden DSL is available at prices comparable to cable modems.
Now something here strikes me as odd. Why sit on technology for 7 years? Well let's talk about my T1 line. Theoretically DSL should be able to transfer T1 like rates of information over standard copper. However DSL is what $80.00 a month and my T1 costs me in the neighborhood of $1600.00 a month unless I lock myself into some pretty sever contracts (yeah I have done so) This is what the baby bells fear. ATT has been a frontrunner of new tech for a long time. With divestiture it has intensified.
Now being an ex-employee I have seen the changes the CEO (Armstrong) is making and if I were the baby bells I would be scared to. They want to milk as much money as they can and cable modems threaten them. In the past the cable modems were not implemented because the companies didn't have enough money to make a real go of it. Plus they had monopolies and cable was/is just a cash cow to them. I try to get my cable company on the phone and they never answer, yet when I move to a new apartment they are real quick to respond... Hmmm.
Anyway, I say if it's going to lower the cost of communications let ATT go for it. What we need to be focusing on is getting more right of way access for other companies and not allowing counties and city planners to only allow 1 phone company, and 1 cable company access your house.
Open up the right of ways and give att competition. Rather than using the same lines as ATT does and thus limiting the infrastructure. Frankly, give me DSL, OC3, Cablemodems, satellite TV, Wireless, microwave. All these techs are available and if I don't like ATT's service and I have to pay $5 a month more for a wireless system fine. That is what competition is about.
This really comes down to the baby bells getting scared someone will compete for local phone service and data connections so that they cannot milk their customers. AOL has a different problem with ATT and the ISP, but that is beyond this article, though I don't believe they have any better justification than the bells.
My point is that these people want to protect their turf or get a free ride on the back of ATT. ATT when it bought the cable companies paid approx $4000 for each customer these companies had. That's a lot of money. They intend to spend billions upgrading the network and frankly I think they will do it, but if they are forced to allow access to other companies at a fraction of the cost it took to upgrade the network ATT won't be able to justify the expense. Hense no cable modems therefore the baby bells retain their stranglehold over data communications and they can keep ripping me off!
Not that I have an opinion on this or anything.
Grin
Lando
Re:So? (Score:1)
A republic is a flock of sheep voting on which wolves decide on dinner.
A Constitutional (the US Constitution) Republic is where dinner isnt voted on, and the sheep have guns.
Re:So? (Score:2)
We actually would end up with:
I don't think we should surrender our system to big business, because they don't even have to pay lip-service towards the goals of improving the lives of citizenry: the avowed goal of modern corporations is to maximize shareholder value. Not to improve the lives of corporate employees, not to improve the character of the nations in which the corporation does business, but to (and let me emphasize this again) maximize shareholder value. Not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but certainly not the way I want my government to behave..
Your Working Boy,
Time for an econ lesson.... (Score:5)
*Montgomery County, MD gas utility - (DC suburbs) gas is provided by one utility. There is no competition. However, the local govt. has pricing and quality of service restrictions on the utility to ensure that the monopoly power that they have granted the utility isn't abused.
*Cell Phones - Cell companies build cell infrastructure, and that isn't a natural monopoly. However, most local telcos are, so when you make a call on a cell phone to a local landline, what's happening is that the cell co. uses up some bandwidth that it has leased from the local telco. (this is assuming that the local telco is a natural monopoly)
*Long distance telco - no monoplies anymore, but the flexible infrastructure is very important and used in the same manner. Joe Bob and Peggy Sue start their lond distance service, but have no infrastructure. They lease a portion of some AT&T lines. AT&T wants to oversubscribe the lines, so it's in their interest, Joe Bob and Peggy Sue get some infrastructure space, and there's another long distance provider trying to bring lower prices to the market than its competition.
The reason these professors are rightly concerned is very clear. I would suggest that anyone who doesn't get their point should re-read the article, the whole way through. If one company controls the infrastructure, has no competiton, and goes unregulated, the consumer gets screwed. The FCC should NEVER hand a firm unregulated monoploy power. Would anyone here suggest that MS should have been handed its monoploy power by an agency of the federal govt?
itachi
So! (Score:2)
itachi
Re:Private property doesn't seem to count (Score:2)
Actually, since they get to lay a big chunck of this cable under emininent domain, I believe the tax-payers have every right to set some ground rules. What right does ATT or any other utility have to clutter up my skyline with their ugly poles? Seems fair to me. ATT gets to use "public property", that is, easements taken under eminent domain, and maintained at taxpayer expense, for a non-monopoly share of infrastructure running open standards. Why is this so difficult to understand?
If ATT wants to use a private property argument, they should purchase all their own easements.
Re:Well gee (Score:2)
Not in Westchester, NY.. We suffer under the pricing yoke of Cablevision (and only Cablevision) ever since they bought out TCI's franchise in our area. IIRC NYC has some kind of thing where cable companies don't cross into each other's territory.
Cable companies have competition in all areas. Look at the millions of DBS dishes sold recently. Once the (gov't imposed) restrictions on carrying local channels is lift, I expect that market to explode.
The legislation to permit DBS providers to carry local stations was passed in the house in the anti-cybersquatting bill.. The senate may ratify it this week (before going on break until January) and pass it up to the Prez quite quickly..
Don't forget that there are lots of lobbyists for both the DBS and Cable (and Telco, and Tobacco, and Automakers, and $oftware, etc. etc.) who sway representatives on many issues which are unfriendly to driving costs for consumers down.
If we consumers could get our head out of our ass and find or form some non-partisan group whose only mission was to drive down prices for consumers, and use that to combat profiteering interests.. Or hell, if we could bother to get off our ass and vote.. Or if we could pressure our parties to nominate people who weren't complete chowderheads...
You can do one of two things: work within the system to improve it, or smash the system and build a new one. I happen to think that (based on my knowledge of the founding documents of this nation) this system is fundamentally oriented towards good, so rather than smash the system it would pay to 'overhaul' it.. But none of this will happen if instead of reading the newspaper and giving a shit, you just sit there fragging demons in Quake or watching Ally McBeal... Whatever your political and/or personal persuasion, please whatever you do, don't be another 'ignorant American' statistic...
Your Working Boy,
a vat of doo-doo (Score:1)
If I don't want to buy broadband internet access from AT&T/Media One, there is always my local RBOC, Bell South, who will happily sell me a DSL, wireless cable television, wireless telephones, whatever.
The brief states that Lessig &is/was on GTE and Bell Atlantic's payroll to argue against the merger, so exactly how unbiased is he?
The fact is that high-speed, always on internet technology marginalizes or completely eliminates the value provided by today's dialup ISPs. Of course they will cry "foul!" and try to get the government to protect their business. But it's a whole new world; dialup-style ISPs will become obsolete just like electric refrigeration made the icebox obsolete.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
Re:Aaron still doesn't get it ;) (Score:1)
That's the risk that AT&T takes as the implementor of a technology as opposed to a purchaser of the technology. Any new technology has that risk. Cable companies should charge for the cable modem access service in a way that's a good solid business plan...ie, in a way that will make them a profit in the future. I haven't heard anyone demand broadband access at a discounted rate even (certainly the ISP that I work for isn't asking for that) only for a level playing field, and no tieing of the broadband access infrastructure to a specific ISP. Nothing more.
Jeff
Re:So? (Score:1)
(Great example, using lynch mobs to futher the notion of "mob rule", as if a lynch mob constitutes a majority in a democratic election.)
Regulation = Monopoly (Score:1)
Remember for a moment, too, that government regulation has more than once produced not competition, but monopoly. AT&T, the railroads, local utilities, cable TV.
The whole broadband market is so in its infancy that it's way too early to stifle this. If AT&T becomes enough of a threat to the architecture of the net, then dump the cable modem and buy DSL.
-cwk
Re:Infrastructure vs. ISP's (Score:3)
Say MediaOne starts blocking the ports used for IP telephony -- after all, that's a direct competitor to AT&T's primary business. Suddenly, millions of MediaOne customers are forced either to switch to another ISP or give up using IP telephony. And if they switch to another ISP, they're still paying for MediaOne! Don't want to pay for MediaOne? Sorry -- it comes with your DSL connection; if you don't want MediaOne, you're going to have to find another DSL service.
Much more to the point, you still have port 119 blocked. Your access to YAISP is through MediaOne, not around them. Their Terms of Service still apply, and so does their firewalling of port 119.
This isn't hypothetical; I tried to get Cox/@Home to connect me, and was even willing to pay extra for access to my old ISP. No such luck; their TOS forbids having any servers attached and I use NFS for the home machinery.
Re:Infrastructure vs. ISP's (Score:2)
If there were a legal way out of this contract AT&T would gladly let other ISPs deliver service over their cable lines since more content leads to more demand. AT&T markets phone service in partnership with a variety of other companies and organizations and would be glad to have dozens or even hundreds of special interest ISPs doing targeted marketing and paying AT&T for the infrastructure.
Help me here. If AT&T is so unhappy to be bound by the MediaOne contract, howcome they're fighting so hard against regulations that would free them from it? After all, contractual obligations are always subordinated and superceded by legislative and regulatory ones.
Speeding is NOT a crime (Score:1)
and where do you think the government got the funds to PAY for the roads?
A. Gas taxes and tolls? Who pays those? The people USING the roads pay for the roads.
> so they make the rules. If you want to drive them, you follow them - you drive the speed limit, get a license plate, etc
Look, I travel
i) WITHOUT a driver's license, and
ii) WITHOUT my car being registered by the government / state (hence no state license plate.)
and I have
a) never got a ticket for driving without a license, or
b) been given a ticket for speeding.
How come?
Because I'm exercising my Right To Travel.
http://teaminfinity.com/~ralph/dl.html
http://www.lvdi.net/~willys/travel.htm
http://www.ironsoft.com/lp/driving.html
http://aero.net/silver/Driving.htm
I have an Internationals Drivers Permit. Also, the state does NOT have the Manufacturer's Certificate of Origin for my car, so I am completely out of their jurisidiciton.
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/441
You might want to check FACTS before spreading FUD.
Cheers
Re:Maybe it's just me (Score:2)
Provide me an address and a way to look up other addresses. I'm happy then. Unless there's something else I don't know about (which is probably true).
If you want NNTP, you're going to need an NNTP host. If you want DNS, you need a DNS service. Most small nodes benefit from SMTP hosting on redundant server farms; it's more reliable. Even large companies with fat pipes and server farms of their own are finding it beneficial to use external webhosting services. Hey, even NTP is best run with some structure.
The list goes on. Are these necessary services? Some, yes. Other, maybe. Many, probably not. So shop around. The diversity of Internet Service providers allows the market to sort these issues out rather than having them decided by one suit in New Jersey.
Re:Well gee (Score:1)
Re:So? (Score:1)
Simple Regulation and Open Peering (Score:1)
The Internet should have a simple regulation from the FCC which says that network A is required to peer with network B no more than "x" months after network B requests peering. And peering is meant as to be "directly connected" in a way which will allow allow packet delivery from either network to any host on the peered network. (with some mention of bandwidth parity)
Therefore, you could be a small ISP and want to wire your town with fiber optic line. The local ISPs would have to "peer" with you to allow you to connect with all of their customers without cost. If a so called "transit" network provider like AT&T wants to get involved at the local level, then they pay the price of having to allow all the local ISPs direct access to all of AT&Ts customers without getting any cash in return from the local ISPs for the used bandwidth.
As I recall, open peering was one of the founding principals of the Internet and it only makes sense for that principal to be codified somehow.
Let's not return to the days when it was illegal to plug your own phone into AT&T's network.
This Just In: /. has an anti Microsoft bias (Score:2)
--
But you get a hobbled IP address (Score:1)
In their paper, they refer to @Home's ``acceptable-use'' policy [home.com], which you would do well to read carefully before you decide that ATT+M1 will sell you ``an IP Address. That's it.'' They call out numerous things you can't do over their connection (set up a Web server, sell access to 3rd parties, etc. Hell, they even tell you you've got to authenticate anyone who connects to you:
)But the beauty part is that, with ATT+M1's proposal, you get no choice. ``Connect to the internet over our cable---sure, but you go through our ISP. Don't like it? Then keep dialing.''
In fact, IIRC, ATT+M1 said a few months ago that if they couldn't bundle, they wouldn't even try to merge. I wonder why? Could it be that they forsee money in forcing an ISP down peoples throats? Nahhh, couldn't be....
My cable guy... (Score:1)
Currently, all local telcos are required to provide access to CLECs (competitive local exchange carriers; Correct me if I am wrong, but the basic idea is other telcos.) over their circuits for a fee. So that, if I am in a SWBT region I should be able to get GTE services over the same wire if I was so inclined.
Once AT&T starts offering phone service over cable, won't they be held to the same standards as the regular carriers? Why should internet access be any different? ISPs should be able to pay a fee to AT&T/TCI to have access to their wires so consumers can have a choice like I do with DSL.
In the Dallas area, I have heard the argument that it is a technical issue. The way cable works, being a shared access medium, prevents them from splitting up their network for different access providers. The problems with the CLECs is that different companies have to share their pools of telephone numbers, which they were not originally set up to do. IP addresses could be shared in similar ways between AT&T, and a local ISP. I don't even think they would have to do anything as complicated as that, just provide PVCs over ATM into the neighborhood. In Dallas, they have fiber going to each "block" of people, and when it gets over 90 they split it up again. At most there would be 90 or so PVCs on the edge switch to the block. It sounds like a problem that needs to be solved, and I would be glad to do it for a fee. I wouldn't even charge them the hundreds of millions of dollars they think it would cost.
Hey ATT! want a bargain on fixing your network?
I would rather have an option to get a line and IP addresses (and maybe some large DNS servers in relatively close proximity) without paying for all the other fluff that ISPs provide. Unfortunalty, that isn't an option I have been able to find. I know it wouldn't be suitable for everyone, but I think some of us could handle it and would enjoy the cost savings.
You're a loony (Score:1)
- Look, I travel WITHOUT a driver's license...
Yes, there are facts that are unclear to some people here. Guess who those people are? Or person. Sheesh.I have an Internationals Drivers Permit.
You might want to check FACTS...
ATT is at risk regardless (Score:2)
How does AOL drop out nad make the risk bigger than if AOL had never dropped in at all?
--
There's no theft; it's all paid for (Score:2)
Where exactly is the theft here? What exactly is the problem with this scenario?
Like the judge in Portland said, ATT is either a cable company, in which case regulation is what the FCC has ordered, or they are a telecommunications company, in which case the FCC and state PUCs have said stop bundling and open up. You and ATT can't have it both ways.
--
@Home port filtering (Score:1)
One thing I've noticed, which I think coincides with blocking port 139, is that the performance of my @Home connection has been significantly better for the last two weeks or so.
Has anyone else noticed this, or is it only happening in Portland (where they are being asked to open their networks, hmmm....).
And you thought MS overused "innovation" (Score:2)
Overall I found this brief to be clear and understandable, but I can't make sense of third sentence on in the above paragraph. Anyone care to translate?
--
How do you open a cable loop? (Score:2)
In the case of a cable loop, all the subscribers are effectively sharing an ethernet segment. An individual subscriber does not get dedicated bandwidth and gets his IP address from the cable provider. While clearly you could have competitive services such as mail, web, news, and DNS servers without much trouble, it would seem to be difficult to offer competitive ISP service on equitable terms when a number of subscribers share the same local loop. I'd be interested in learning more about how those who propose opening cable (a good idea, all else being equal) plan to do so.
--
Odd event given Lessig's past (Score:1)
Re:My cable guy... (Score:1)
This is exactly how it COULD be done to support more than one ISP on the cable TV network. Or different IP addresses could be assigned to different customers of the competing ISPs, via DHCP.
Some of the very first cable modem products on the market (LanCity, back in '94-'96) were specifically designed to support multiple ISPs on a single CATV network! In their network subscriber management application for the CATV company, they had database entries for which ISP a customer was subscribed to. The CATV provider could define multiple ISPs, and assign new customers to any of them. LanCity had the notion that the local CATV company would only supply point-to-point transport services (for a fee) and then a seperate ISP would provide Internet connectivity, bandwidth, tech support, and so on. Not to say that the CATV company couldn't have a subsidary or a sister company that was also an ISP...
There are no technical reasons why open and competing access can't work on cable networks. When I was involved in some cable modem deployment work 4 years ago, this was technicially possible even then, when the cable modems were mostly based on ethernet and MAC layer protocols (VLANs were possible). Today, it seems that a lot of the systems are PVC or SVC based using ATM to a head-end switch. Should be even easier to keep traffic seperated between providers and customers.
Re:Maybe it's just me (Score:1)
1 IP address? Well, it's going to cost you.
Go ahead, run sendmail. Oh, by the way, we blocked port
25, so it probably won't work so well. But you can use our
POP servers for a nominal fee.
Your underlying assumption here is that with your IP
address(s), you get unrestricted use of your connection
bandwith. If that lack of restriction isn't regulated, then
your connection provider can block out all services which
they provide alternatives for, or provide for additional
fees.
Competition? Yeah, right. I live in the middle of silicon
valley, and even here many houses are too far away from
their central office to get DSL. Additional broadband
services are popping up, but no company is going to
limit themselves to being just a bandwidth provider unless
they're forced to. There's too much money in "optional"
services.
First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. (Score:1)
The lawsuit alleges that the defendants have harmed more than 500,000 consumers by depriving them of the right to choose their high-speed ISPs...
You have a right to buy or not buy the damned service. GOD!
Extortion is extortion, whether the people doing it have big pinkie rings or law degrees.
-cwk.
A lesson in capitalism (Score:2)
By the same token we're not completely capitalist either. Otherwise how do you explain social security, environmental regulations, zoning requirements, or anti-trust restrictions. The laws of this country state that you can't use a monopoly in restraint of trade. In practice this means that most companies seeking monopolies are acting in an illegal manner. In the case of cable companies, they have a natural monopoly (it is impractical to have too many wires to the home), and in exchange for their monopoly powers, they exist under regulations.
As we have seen with the "deregulation" (really just different regulation) of long distance and local telephone operations, the society gets the most benefit when businesses are allowed to compete in a free-market capitalist manner on every piece of the network other than the small piece that is a natural monopoly.
--
Re:Well gee, government set up monopoly cable (Score:1)
Natural monopolies are a farce (Score:1)
Every time a "natural monopoly" has been broken up, it has ended up that a competitive marketplace is far better for the consumer. Cable competition is the shining star example.
There was a time when there were many local power companies and many local phone companies. They were forced out of business by government, they did not end "naturally".
Re:Private property doesn't seem to count (Score:1)
There is talk of setting up a local "phone company" here in Laurel that would deliver phone, television, and Internet over fiber to home. The technology is not tough, the regulations are.
Re:Time for an econ lesson.... (Score:2)
You mention that quality of service and price can only be determined by the market. This is true, after a fashion. However, in a monopoly situation, QOS falls, price rises, and quantity available falls. In a natural monoploy, the govt. assigns quotas to prevent the firm from exercising it's monopoly power. Again, look at local utilities. Call up your gas co. and ask them if they set the rates completely independantly, or if there are locl govt. regulations on rates.
You are correct about telcos, they are not as much of a natural monoploy anymore. I should have been more specific - local landlines are a natural monopoly. Now you can choose to go all cellular if you don't like the local landline provider, however, the cost of cellular does still restrict who can consume that market - local landlines are still much cheaper, at least in the US.
Finally, it is expected that the govt should hand off some monopolies - they have few other reasonable choices when it comes to natural monopolies. This is where regulation comes into play. One of the solutions that the authors imply is that AT&T should only be allowed to combine ISP and infrastructure and build this monopoly if they are regulated by the govt. until they are willing to open the infrastructure to other ISPs. This is exactly what i was arguing in my previous post, and it seems to be what you are looking for.
itachi
as always, feel free to email me and tell me I'm wrong...
Re:Natural monopolies are a farce (Score:2)
itachi
militia types?? (Score:1)
I want nothing to do with guns, and don't own one.
Unfortunately that doesn't stop the criminals. But I digress.
Its considered bad nettiqute to attack a person, and not the discussion, which I see you didn't even attempt. I'm awaiting a civil and intelligent discussion.
Cheers
An IDP != Driver's License (Score:1)
They are NOT the same thing !
Here, I'll include the text on the back of my IDP for you, since you seem to be confused.
"Convention on Internation Road Traffic of 19 September, 1949
This Permit is issued under International Law and the Law of Nations. By signing this Permit, Holder described herein, Certifies that He/She has all the necessary skills to safely operate a motorized conveyance as required by law.
This Permit may be presented in over 200 contracting and independent countries. Some countries may require a special registration fee be paid in addition to the possession of this Permit. Consistent with international regulations, this Permit is Not valid in the country of issue."
Like I said, check your FACTS.
Cheers
Re:Algore ain't my daddy (Score:1)
Such as? What if the "something else" tells you "sorry, initial costs are too high compared to market potential, unless you want to pay me $2000 a month for your access. Go to Sprint."? At some point you run out of 'something else'.
Then you realize: Free market is just a theory, it has a lots of holes in it, and you either decide you can do without the monopoly goods you wanted, or pay the requested price.
Re:a vat of doo-doo (Score:1)