It's a popular concept that competition will resolve NN concerns. A couple of weeks back I taped Barbara Van Schewick expounding on her theme that blocking, discrimination, and/or access charges, ARE acceptable if at the users - rather than provider's - discretion. http://www.isoc-ny.org/p2/?p=1459
Afterwards, I asked her about the effect of competition. She remarked that, according to her research, countries with competition, such as the Euro unbundling regimes like the UK, actually had a much higher likelihood of such network management practices that the duopolist USA as the providers were under greater pressure to optimize the economic value of every bit put through. <http://www.isoc-ny.org/p2/?p=1459>Plusnet's transparency would seem to be indicative of a trend toward Van Schewick style solutions, where user's have a bandwidth dashboard where they can opt to throttle application-by-application, plus possibly receive targeted ads, to get a cheaper connection. j On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 3:13 AM, Michael Painter <tvhaw...@shaka.com> wrote: > Ben Butler wrote: > >> Same hymn sheet, if they pay enough the cost averaging model works again >> and we don't have to worry about latency critical or >> transfer volume. The problem is that they wont pay for it. >> > > I became interested in these guys: http://www.plus.net/?home=hometop in > 2008 because they were one of the first > to use DPI (and admit it) to enforce their TOS. Every time I check their > site (~every 8-10months), they seem to have won another award. > Is 'Net Neutrality', the FCC, or something else preventing a model like > this from having success in the U.S.? > Or does it exixt and I just haven't heard about it? > > --Michael > > > > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: wher...@gmail.com [mailto:wher...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of William >> Herrin >> Sent: 30 November 2010 04:17 >> To: Ben Butler >> Cc: NANOG list >> Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning >> Comcast'sActions >> >> On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 10:51 PM, Ben Butler <ben.but...@c2internet.net> >> wrote: >> >>> Then consumer broadband came along, the subs went >>> down, the headline speeds went up, service delivery >>> becomes impossible in the face of the marketing BS >>> ---- and here we are. >>> >> >> Hi Ben, >> >> So you're saying: treat it like electrical service. I have a 200 amp >> electrical service at my house. But I don't pay for a 200 amp service, >> I pay for kilowatt-hours of usage. >> >> There are several problems transplanting that billing model to >> Internet service. The first you've already noticed - marketing >> activity has rendered it unsalable. But that's not the only problem. >> >> Another problem is that the price of electricity has been very stable >> for a very long time, as has the general character of devices which >> consume it. Consumers have a gut understanding of the cost of leaving >> the light on. But what is a byte? How much to load that web page? >> Watch that movie? And doesn't Moore's Law mean that 18 months from now >> it should cost half as much? If I can't tell whether or not I'm being >> ripped off, I'm probably being ripped off. >> >> A third problem is the whole regulated monopoly thing. The electric >> company had to be slapped down hard by the government to make its >> billing process fair. Anything we can do to avoid that fate is money >> in the bank, even if it means allowing the occasional customer to get >> more than he paid for. >> >> So if we can't bill you by usage, and at a consumer level we can't, >> then we have to find another way. Statistics and prayer isn't working >> out as well as we'd hoped so we're looking at double-billing schemes. >> Bad plan! >> >> Regards, >> Bill Herrin >> > > > -- --------------------------------------------------------------- Joly MacFie 218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast WWWhatsup NYC - http://wwwhatsup.com http://pinstand.com - http://punkcast.com Secretary - ISOC-NY - http://isoc-ny.org ---------------------------------------------------------------
