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Australian internet experts explain exactly what's going on in the US.
This article conveys exactly what I was trying to say in that Comcast cap thread. It's not just comcast, all American ISP's are feeling pinch of users eating more and more internet bandwidth. http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/comm...9292161,00.htm Net neutrality is an 'American problem' The leaders of three of Australia's largest ISP's have declared the Net neutrality debate as solely a US problem — and further, that the nation that pioneered the internet might want to study the Australian market for clues as to how to solve the dilemma. Net neutrality is a term coined by internet users who oppose the increasing tendency among network owners (telcos) to tier or prioritise certain content on the network. The debate was sparked after several American and British service providers offered to charge a premium to prioritise traffic connecting with some sites over others. These service providers claim the internet is "running out of capacity" due to excessive use of rich content like video and file sharing traffic. The only model with which capacity can be expanded, they argue, is to charge large media companies to prioritise traffic to and from their sites. America's problem is that unlike Australia, they offer truly unlimited plans. Justin Milne, group MD, Telstra Media However, Simon Hackett, the managing director of Adelaide-based ISP Internode, argues that it is ridiculous to suggest bandwidth is "running out". "I don't subscribe to the view that network capacity is finite at all... Optical fibre basically doesn't run out of capacity, it's just a question of how fast you blink the bits at each end," he said in a recent interview with ZDNet.com.au. "The Net neutrality problem isn't about running out of capacity. It's a business model that's about to explode due to stress. The problem, in my opinion, is the US business model," said Hackett. "The US have got a problem," weighed in Justin Milne, group managing director for Telstra Media and former chief of Australia's largest ISP BigPond. "Their problem is that unlike Australia, they offer truly unlimited plans." The problem with an "unlimited access" plan, explains Hackett, is that it "devalues what a megabyte is worth". American customers have never been able to put much of a dollar value on traffic, as historically, US ISPs have "had it very easy" in terms of bandwidth costs. The United States invented the internet, developed the first content for it, and the rest of the world essentially subsidised the US to connect to that content. Net neutrality... is a business model that's about to explode due to stress. Simon Hackett, Internode "It was quite rational to charge [users] a fixed amount of money for access [in the US] because the actual downloads per month were trivial," comments Hackett. Today, there is as much local traffic floating around the rest of the world as there is in the United States, and America is as much a consumer of the world's content as it is a distributor of content to the world. In addition, the traffic being carried is far richer in terms of content, so the cost of feeding capacity to the "YouTube Generation" is considerably higher. "Now everybody file shares and sends video all around the place," says Milne, "and the problem for the telcos in the US is they are having to expand their networks as they go, but they are not getting paid any more money." Who pays? American ISPs are thus faced with a choice as to who to charge in order to build out their networks to accommodate the increased traffic. The first choice is to absorb the costs themselves, the status quo to date, which is less than desirable as a business model. The second choice is to cease to offer unlimited plans, which passes the cost of excessive bandwidth use onto those users that consume the most. The more you use the more you pay ... the internet in the US just magically decided to avoid that. Justin Milne, group MD, Telstra Media The final choice, says Michael Malone, CEO of ASX-listed ISP iiNet, is to charge content providers, the model that has stirred up controversy. "The attempt is being made certainly in the UK but also in the US to push that cost onto the content owner by saying, you pay, and we'll prioritise your traffic," he said. "And if you don't pay, your traffic will be really crap." American ISP's are hesitant to take the option of charging customers for excessive use, Milne says, because they will "probably all knick off and go to my competitors who are not charging them". Instead, they plan to "charge the guys who are putting big gobs of video traffic into my network — which would be people like Microsoft and YouTube and Google etc." "Those guys say, you're kidding, what about Net neutrality? The Net is supposed to be free, man! You can't charge us for putting traffic in there because that's denying the natural rights of Americans! I think the argument is thin but nevertheless Congress seems to be picking it up." Learn from Down Under The right choice, agree all three Australian ISP leaders, is to put the onus on the user, a model that has worked well in Australia. As an Australian ISP, around 60 to 70 per cent of traffic comes from overseas. "You've got to haul the traffic," explains Milne. "All of that traffic is volumetrically charged — the more traffic you haul from overseas, the more you pay. So all ISPs in Australia, because of our unique geography, have got used to pay-as-you-go and have handed those pay-as-you-go principles on to their customers." Malone says that when users are offered truly unlimited access to download as much as they want, three per cent of customers use over 50 per cent of all the downloads. Download quotas can eradicate that problem if they are set at such a level that it affects this three per cent, while having zero affect on the majority. Quotas, Malone says, aren't designed to be punitive. "Quotas are meant to be able to say that for 95 per cent of customers, this [much data] is enough... This is an effectively unlimited connection for most people. Net neutrality is an artificial problem created out of fear of modifying the business model. Simon Hackett, Internode "From my point of view, [Net neutrality is] an artificial problem created out of fear of modifying the business model," says Hackett. "The idea that the entire population can subsidise a minority with an extremely high download quantity actually isn't necessarily the only way to live," said Malone. The Australian model gives ISP's predictability about income and network costs, explains Hackett. "If a user uses much more stuff, they wind up on higher plans, so we can actually afford to bring in more [network equipment and capacity," he said. "So it's kind of self-correcting. In the US, an ISP is visibly afraid of the idea of customers pulling video 24/7. [Whereas] if our users use more traffic it doesn't actually scare us. You get the sense that it actually does scare [US ISP] Comcast." Milne says a number of US cable companies have taken the hint and started charging "volumetrically". "I think that's actually where things will finish up," he says. "Be it electricity, travel, petrol, we as humans have got used to the idea that the more you use the more you pay, albeit with a discount. The Net in the US just magically decided to avoid that, and now I think they'll have to come back to reality." "Yes, you can't just keep on building these networks forever for free. You can build them bigger and bigger and bigger, but somebody has to pay for it. There has to be a business model by which the network is paid for," added Milne. |
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#4 |
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That may all be true. But bandwidth caps are still balls. which ever way you look at it Comcasts 250GB cap is more than enough to download a giant amount of video and streaming. That's 500 hourly shows of Diggnation in 720p H264 a month. I say 250GB is more than enough to handle constant SD streaming and itunes or Netflix downloads as it currently is and HD content. |
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#5 |
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The problem is simple: Cable co's offer speeds they can't support and hope people don't use those speeds.
Take, for example, Time Warner's 25 meg cable. They're offering these speeds at the same price as the competitions 10 meg package to draw in customers. The ISP I have can support their 10 meg just fine. TWC cannot support their 25. They rely 100% on people not using the connection they're paying for. The problem isn't so much the unlimited factor, its giving people 25 meg connections and then complaining when they use them. Comcast's new method is to throttle customers. If they stuck to reasonable speeds it wouldn't be an issue. Look at Verizon. They've got the capacity, so they can offer the speeds. These cable co's don't have that kind of capacity, but they want to pretend like they do so they offer ridiculous speeds at low prices and hope nobody uses their connection. The majority of the people with the high end speed packages don't need them, and those that do are the ones abusing them. Its all just a marketing game they play to make a profit. They sell their fastest speed packages to people who don't need more than 3mb downstream feeding them tons of BS reasons, then cry when a few of those people decide to make use of the all you can eat high speed buffet. On a 1.5 meg connection (not at home) I can check out all the streaming video content on CNN, youtube, etc. The only thing I can't do is download HD trailers quickly. So going from 10 meg to 1.5 meg the only thing that suffers is my large file downloading abilities. Streaming content works fine. Back when I was on a 5 meg connection Netflix movies streamed flawlessly. I only upgraded my package because I was sick of waiting for beta client, HD trailers, and 1 gig patches to download. Well that, and because I wanted to enlarge my e-penis. Caps aren't the answer. Just like all other companies (lol $700bil bailout) its corporate greed ignoring sound logic and advice that is the problem. The majority of the congestion end up being too much speed requested, too little provided. Its like trying to flush a charmin double roll down your home toilet. But nobody wants to upgrade their network.. because that's one hell of an investment. Advisor: Engineering says there's no way in hell we can support that. Exec: Do it anyway, and when there's problems tell the customer "we're working on a resolution". |
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#6 |
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Rainwind hit the nail on the head. They need to update their infrastructure, this is going backwards as bandwidth needs for EVERY user are only increasing due to the content that is now available on the internet.
So instead of whining like bitches, they should do the right thing and invest for the future when bandwidth needs will only increase more |
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#12 |
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Love the use of "magically", in reference to the US and bandwidth use, the author uses a couple times in his article. [rofl]
That's 500 hourly shows of Diggnation in 720p H264 a month. I say 250GB is more than enough to handle constant SD streaming and itunes or Netflix downloads as it currently is and HD content. |
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#13 |
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Rainwind hit the nail on the head. They need to update their infrastructure, this is going backwards as bandwidth needs for EVERY user are only increasing due to the content that is now available on the internet. Today's rich video content really requires the user to have the high bandwidth (speed) available. You don't want to be sitting there for ages trying to load something. You don't want speed to limit how much you can download in X amount of time. I know I only ever use X amount of GB a month. Now to download a 600MB file it takes me no longer than 5 minutes. If it took 30 minutes it would piss me off. The Australian model looks at delivering that content as fast as possible. We don't get charged for a 5 Mbit line vs a 20Mbit line. The lines are typically as fast as they can go so you can share and stream the internet with no fuss. I know I don't use much more than 30GB a month, so I get a 30GB plan and I have full pace ADSL2+. Anyhow it's not about corporate greed. You seem to no understand the situation and are telling Comcast to shush build infrastructure. Just a side note if you actually read the OP... Most people respect the opinion of Simon Hackett (quoted in article) from Internode. Internode is one ISP that gives a damn about customer service and having an amazing network. |
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#14 |
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So instead of whining like bitches, they should do the right thing and invest for the future when bandwidth needs will only increase more And I COMPLETELY agree with this capping. There is simply NO reason people need unlimitted quota's for. I am paying $100 a month and I have a 40GB quota and I'm quite happy, I rarely use more then it at the months end and I can download quite a lot of movies, stream a ton of shows, browse the net and do a ton of downloading in general. If I had 250GB quota or more I'd probably only use like 50-60GB tops. And even if the US are getting capped now they shouldn't complain, they still pay like 10% the amount we do for like 400% more. |
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#15 |
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And I COMPLETELY agree with this capping. There is simply NO reason people need unlimitted quota's for. I am paying $100 a month and I have a 40GB quota and I'm quite happy, I rarely use more then it at the months end and I can download quite a lot of movies, stream a ton of shows, browse the net and do a ton of downloading in general. I would imagine for $80 USD you guys could easily get 200GB of data or more. |
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#16 |
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Just so the yanks put things into perspective. $100 a month for 40GB is a bit on the expensive side, even for Australia. Typically for $90 AU you get 50-60GB a month, with some ISP's offering offpeak downloads, such as iinet that give 100GB total, 40GB peak periods 60GB offpeak (2am-2pm = offpeak). So you just set your downloads for the morning or over night. for $90 + unlimited VoIP. Now our data costs a lot more for Aussie ISP's than the US, so expect your plans to offer much more! ![]() Currently, we pay roughly $50 for the 250GB cap on Comcast. |
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#17 |
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Just so the yanks put things into perspective. $100 a month for 40GB is a bit on the expensive side, even for Australia. Typically for $90 AU you get 50-60GB a month, with some ISP's offering offpeak downloads, such as iinet that give 100GB total, 40GB peak periods 60GB offpeak (2am-2pm = offpeak). So you just set your downloads for the morning or over night. for $90 + unlimited VoIP. Now our data costs a lot more for Aussie ISP's than the US, so expect your plans to offer much more! ![]() ![]() So I am sticking to my ADSL 8MB connection with internode. I was with iinet before and yes I liked them very much but paying $100 for 10GB peak and 10GB offpeak was getting on my fricken nerves as I used up my peak very quickly and was capped during the day and I slept during the night so I rarely used my offpeak. I know iinet recently increased their quota's but it's to late now, took them to long and I made the switch and am quite happy with being able to use 40GB anytime of the day. I really do wish ADSL2+ was more supported in my area. I could be paying $100 a month getting twice the speed and 15-20GB more quota. And there are companies such as exetel that offer 40GB peak and 40GB offpeak for like $100 a month but I heard their services and reliability are poor, like Telstar's and Optuses. |
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#18 |
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Wow, you aussies get reamed. No wonder you are making as big of a deal out of the whole bandwidth cap as those of us who are actually affected by it. |
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#19 |
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You know.. i get a kick out of the non US people..
Just because you have bent over and have it bad, does not mean everybody else should. Fact is, limiting bandwidth is NOT the way forward; in fact, it is a huge step back. The whole world is modernizing, and limiting bandwidth will do no good. And just because some of you cannot use all the bandwidth, there are plenty who can. Again, just point out all the legal services - Direct to Drive, TV and Movie watching, Porn (sorry, but it is true), etc. But whats the point? Its not like you are suddenly going to change your mind; no matter what, you want the rest of us to be screwed over like you are... I just hope it never happens.. |
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#20 |
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You know.. i get a kick out of the non US people.. Just because your ISP services offers horrible value for the money doesn't mean the rest of want that [thumbdown] You should be complaining even more than you have to pay 100 bucks for a 40gig cap. |
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