2 edits | Restricted Internet Service You either offer Internet service (and all that comes with it) or you do not. Wireless carriers like Verizon and AT&T specifically blocking a competitive application (Skype, Hulu, etc) from customers is a blatant violation of neutrality principals. |
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 baineschile2600 ways to livePremium
join:2008-05-10
Sterling Heights, MI
 ·Comcast
 ·magicjack.com
| A pro-consumer, mildly naive point of view.
If I invest all this money in my infastructure, I should be able to generally dictate what goes on with it, and suspend people if they abuse it. If they dont like that, face the free market, where they can go to a different provider that may have more options for that consumer as far as bandwidth consumption. |
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1 edit | said by baineschile:A pro-consumer, mildly naive point of view. If I invest all this money in my infastructure, I should be able to generally dictate what goes on with it, and suspend people if they abuse it. If they dont like that, face the free market, where they can go to a different provider that may have more options for that consumer as far as bandwidth consumption. NOTE: Ignoring your uncalled for insult.
Abuse is very different then dictating which services you can use on an similar, but competitive, Internet based application. If you offer an Internet service, the data services bits are normally considered just bits. The wireless carriers are being very specific about restricting competitive Internet based services on an Internet product offering. |
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Reviews:
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1 edit | reply to baineschile
Once again they build the infrastructure to access a network that in principle requires you to be open. So if they want to have access to the content the Internet provides... then they should play by its rule.
If not, then they can do like verzion VCast and repackage the media they want to offer and services. |
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| reply to baineschile
said by baineschile:A pro-consumer, mildly naive point of view. If I invest all this money in my infastructure, I should be able to generally dictate what goes on with it, and suspend people if they abuse it. If they dont like that, face the free market, where they can go to a different provider that may have more options for that consumer as far as bandwidth consumption. Ahh, but, some providers have TOS that are restrictive about what kind of content can be passed through their networks.
Most wireless providers say that video streaming (unless its theirs! or sponsored by them) and p2p networks are banned altogether. |
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 MattAll noise, no signal.Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
kudos:12 | reply to baineschile
said by baineschile:A pro-consumer, mildly naive point of view. If I invest all this money in my infastructure, I should be able to generally dictate what goes on with it, and suspend people if they abuse it. If they dont like that, face the free market, where they can go to a different provider that may have more options for that consumer as far as bandwidth consumption. I think "generally dictating" would fall under the 5GB cap. Who cares if I use all 5GB at once? I pay extra or lose service if I go over.
As far as being naive, do you really think we have any choice or the option of ANY carrier who doesn't impose bandwidth consumption limits, penalize you with high ETF fees, and generally collude with the other carrier to keep prices high and service low.
If I would have known my AT&T service was going to be so terrible and they were going to block me from using certain applications, I would never have signed up in the first place. |
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| I'm kind of surprised you thought you'd get great service from AT&T. The horror stories from this site alone have kept me from getting an I-Phone.
And this all encompassing excuse of "bandwidth concerns"is really stupid considering they are once again overselling capacity. Don't put out 5 million I-Phones if your network can only handle 500,000.
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BF69~~~Please stop suffocating gerbils! |
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| reply to yt
One persons "abuse" is another "capacity issue" or another "business model failure". |
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MattAll noise, no signal.Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
kudos:12 | reply to S_engineer
said by S_engineer:I'm kind of surprised you thought you'd get great service from AT&T. The horror stories from this site alone have kept me from getting an I-Phone. And this all encompassing excuse of "bandwidth concerns"is really stupid considering they are once again overselling capacity. Don't put out 5 million I-Phones if your network can only handle 500,000. The horror stories weren't quite so plentiful a year ago. I honestly believe the iPhone caught AT&T off-guard, because the service wasn't as bad a year ago as it is today. In other words, it's been slowly getting worse and worse. |
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 NOVA_GuyObamaCare Kills AmericansPremium
join:2002-03-05 | reply to baineschile
If someone is indeed causing major problems on a consistent basis, then I would agree that the provider should be able to remove them and cancel their service without charging any sort of early termination fee (since the removal was at the provider's discretion).
However, in order to do this the provider must be held to some kind of standard. This should be treated more like a home rental agreement than an single sale of a bag of M&Ms at Wal Mart, especially given the ongoing nature of the service contract between the provider and the consumer. What this means is that prior to providers terminating service, a series of written warnings should be issued. These warnings should include what the user was doing, along with some sort of verifiable proof that it was actually causing a problem on the network.
Providers should also not be allowed to restrict certain applications from running on their network if they are allowing similar applications to run. In other words, AT&T allowing users to stream audio and video of baseball games through the Major League Baseball app means that AT&T should also be forced to allow users to stream audio and video from other sources across their network. Allowing use of the MLB app proves that streaming audio/video doesn't "kill" their network; if they had those kinds of concerns they wouldn't have allowed it to begin with.
I'm tired of AT&T and the like crying wolf and painting those of us who actually want to maximize use of the connections we've paid for as "bandwidth hogs" and the like. But I guess that's the new "in" thing in wireless: overcharge people for shoddy data connections, and then point fingers and blame them when things go awry. 
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It's simple: Obama is lying about health care. His plans require rationing, and openly fund abortions and euthanization. And his continued association with ACORN only shows that he supports its illegal and immoral activities. Remove Obama from office now. |
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| reply to baineschile
said by baineschile:A pro-consumer, mildly naive point of view. If I invest all this money in my infastructure, I should be able to generally dictate what goes on with it, and suspend people if they abuse it. If they dont like that, face the free market, where they can go to a different provider that may have more options for that consumer as far as bandwidth consumption. It's not as black and white as you want it to seem.
Public utilities get generous use of public infrastructure, which in many cases consists of rights to put equipment on private land via utility easements. Private land owners most times are forced to give up these easements and receive no compensation in return.
If a public utility such as a phone company were to negotiate with every land owner for access to their land to put up poles, put up equipment cabinets (fridge size VRADs for example) it could get expensive very quickly and could quite possibly be halted in its tracks by one unwilling land owner.
So yes, they spend their money, but the network isn't all on their property. They need to serve the public and that should include fair and open access to the network. |
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 tubbynetreminds me of the danse russePremium,MVM
join:2008-01-16
Chandler, AZ | reply to Matt
said by Matt:The horror stories weren't quite so plentiful a year ago. I honestly believe the iPhone caught AT&T off-guard, because the service wasn't as bad a year ago as it is today. In other words, it's been slowly getting worse and worse. the reason i went with an iphone was simply because of the fact that i had experience with att in this part of the country and i was pleasantly surprised.
i had a work provided blackjack2 on att. once company policy changes occured, i purchased a 3gs and i haven't been taken aback by the network. its fairly speedy down here and the coverage rivals any other major carrier.
best of all - work foots the bill (voice, data, and unlimited text), so i guess i have no real vested interest other than the phone.
it works well for what i do, ymmv.
q.
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"...if I in my north room dance naked, grotesquely before my mirror waving my shirt round my head and singing softly to myself..." |
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| reply to yt
If a business had designed the internet instead of it evolving from a government/educational system, we wouldn't need "neutrality principles".
I think they are within their rights to dictate how their service is to be used, but they're being all stupid about it. If they just charged more for certain types of packets, instead of blocking them, it would increase their profits.
The best way is an economically efficient way determined by bidding. This paper, written in 1993, explains a better way of doing things, yet I can't find any recent research or proponents of it: »129.3.20.41/eps/comp/papers/9401/9401002.pdf
Basically, each internet link provided by a company should have a monthly cost for maintaining the link and for future investment. Any single packet on the internet should have a bid to the service provider to carry the packet, representing actual dollars and cents (really a fraction of a cent). Packets are priority forwarded by the bid amount.
People who are using video conferencing should be willing to pay more for their packets than people using a torrent. A little meter applet could show the real-time cost, and you could adjust it up until service was acceptable or down if the price is too high for you. A computer program to set these bids could probably minimize your cost if given the right constraints. There would also have to be a best-effort equivalent lowest denomination (which could be free).
This simple solution would solve all pricing and congestion problems on the internet. Now poke holes in it, I'd like to develop this further. |
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| reply to yt
I am fed up with these big corporations and i am equally fed up with the large medai studios & their stooges RIAA & MPAA
Net Neutrality will be good for all of us consumers.we need protection or we will be taken advantage of by these big corps |
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 KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
 ·AT&T DSL Service
| reply to baineschile
said by baineschile:A pro-consumer, mildly naive point of view. If I invest all this money in my infastructure, I should be able to generally dictate what goes on with it, Not if you want to sell service to people to access the internet. If you want to market it as "Censored Monitored controlled semi-access to part of the Internet we deem is ok" well then so be it.
But if you are marketing it as Internet access, then no, you really should NOT control where people go with it. What you're proposing it like the Telephone company selling service that won't dial competitor's or non-affilates businesses, TV's that won't tune to channels that don't participate in some sort of payola plan, or cars that won't run on certain gasoline unless it's from a certain company station.
All which should be illegal, and rightly so.
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"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
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KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK Reviews:
·AT&T DSL Service
| reply to fifty nine
Well said. This same issue also applies to the argument "If the competitors want to provide service, they should have to build their own network from the ground up."
Impossible, since they don't get the utility access and right of ways and easements the existing players do. Even when they do get utility access, they can still be blocked by the incumbent saying "Sorry no room, sure we'll put in more equipment (poles, cabinets, whatever....) .... if you pay us huge amounts for it. Oh and we'll take forever doing it too.
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"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
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KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK Reviews:
·AT&T DSL Service
| reply to anderboy
said by anderboy:If a business had designed the internet instead of it evolving from a government/educational system, we wouldn't need "neutrality principles". You're right. We wouldn't need Internet access at all, as it would be just another expensive service that was one-way and pretty much useless.
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"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
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 Wizeguy
join:2008-08-23
Safety Harbor, FL | reply to baineschile
The Telcos didn't pay for the infrastructure their customers did. All the while they also reaped huge profits. OK that's cool but if your going to advertise internet access it should not mean internet access of our approved sites only. |
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| reply to yt
Re: Restricted Internet Service said by yt:You either offer Internet service (and all that comes with it) or you do not. Wireless carriers like Verizon and AT&T specifically blocking a competitive application (Skype, Hulu, etc) from customers is a blatant violation of neutrality principals. Actually AT&T only blocks Skype on the iPhone. You are free to use it on WM. So, technically, AT&T isn't blocking anything as they don't block it at the network level....err I guess you could say they block it at the user level. But, it's really just a tap dance around the issue. The simple issue that as it stands NOW, there is nothing stopping AT&T from blocking those apps at the network level. And there is nothing as a consumer we can do.
But for some reason people still support the Apple/AT&T, which I would gladly buy an iPhone if for not one of the simple facts Apple bends over for AT&T...I like to think that NOT purchasing their product will send a message that they should change their business model. If only others felt the same way, but it seems the current iPhone owners are HAPPY with the way Apple is doing business with the iPhone. But, then again, this isn't an Apple vs Other device argument now is it?
Should I break out the tiered internet pic? |
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