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fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| reply to DrugSkill
Re: not on the wholesale level, really?
You just made the phone company's point and case for why they want to charge more and tier the internet.
The internet is, in their words, becoming clogged up and as you say, "full capacity"... since many people are out there placing everything on line they can think of, why does the ISP have to pay to upgrade and not expect to pass the cost to the customer who is part of the congestion?
Are we paying enought? Let's look.. Dial up modems, circa $20 a month per one computer. It also usually meant holding your phone line hostage or a second line for the computer.. that was for ONE computer. Dial up and a phone line was about $45 a month for about 30k on average. Cable HSI (since people like to bitch so much about it's price) is often LESS than most people paid for a dial up modem + phone line. Now, let's add to this that HSI can be shared among multiple computers, where dial up wasn't feasable to do so. In some homes, people had multiple dial up accounts even so the cost gets higher.
Now let's look at what you do with a 56K line vs. a 6 or 8mb line. (Many DSL customers are STILL trying to get beyond 1.5).. look at all you are doing and getting with that $45 cable modem line and how many computers in the home are using it at one time. So, please tell me again how that $45 is "already paying well enough" again?
As to the internet,... the internet, in my opinion, needs to slow down for a moment. There is a reason we have Cable TV and Satellite companies... they provide television viewing services. There is a reason that phone companies exists.. to provide telephone services. I personally want the internet, today, to remain what it is... a place to transfer data.. and not the kind that I can get on TV or the phone. The internet is trying to become EVERYTHING over night and it just isn't going to happen the way people want it to. Everyone wants to throw everything on it at one time and then cry foul when it can't hanlde it! No kidding!
So, the ISP is the one to foot the bill for everyone else's desire to explode and, again, as you say "we already pay enough"? I hate to say this, I have been against tiering of the internet as SBC started talking about a few months back, but with this thinking of yours, you have given me reason to now see a valid argument on the other side.
I still want net nutrality, don't get me wrong, but comapnies are not in business to just exist and break even. Innovation comes with more than an idea - they have to be backed with money. Upgrades come with money.. that money comes with the fact that your product makes a profit.. profits go back into the system to enhance the network. If the product is flat, there is no money.. no money, no upgrade.. no upgrades - internet will max out and stay that way and BBR will continue to get pleanty of hits for people looking for a place to bitch. | |
FiL
Premium
join:2005-08-16
Silver Spring, MD
| "As to the internet,... the internet, in my opinion, needs to slow down for a moment. There is a reason we have Cable TV and Satellite companies... they provide television viewing services. There is a reason that phone companies exists.. to provide telephone services. I personally want the internet, today, to remain what it is... a place to transfer data.. and not the kind that I can get on TV or the phone. The internet is trying to become EVERYTHING over night and it just isn't going to happen the way people want it to"
what are you talking about man?!
That made absoulty NO SENSE to me. The internet is trying to do anything, its users that determine whats going on. You seem to like to clump EVERYTHING into one thing, and that "thing" really isnt "anything" at all.
lol. Ur confusing meh. In your view, there should be some internet cop program that would only allow "data" to be shared, and nothing else. Then, what the hell is "data"? How could you ever proclaim "THATS data; this on the other hand isnt." Im not sure you could do that without stomping on someones right to share what they "want". You lobbying for the RIAA/MPAA? Cuase IMO, thats EXACTLY what they wanna hear! | |
keyboard5684
join:2001-08-01
Youngsville, PA
 ·Teliax VOIP
 ·WestPAnet Inc.
 ·WestPAnet Inc. CA..
| It made sense to me, I had trouble reading your post though.
I think the basic point and ideal I really agree with is the internet is not an infinite "thing". Mainly money limits how big and how fast it is. Everybody has to pay some body to connect to the internet somewhere. Even tier 1 providers have enourmous costs.
Now, what I got from the post was this... The internet is not "upgrading". For that to happen everyone in the world would have to upgrade. That means more cost in a world when everyone feels entitled to pay less. We want more out of the same old internet. It is the same as loading up your old 88 chevy with 10 fat people, not going to go well no matter how much you want to move those damn fat people. | |
moonpuppy
join:2000-08-21
Glen Burnie, MD
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to fiberguy
said by fiberguy  :You just made the phone company's point and case for why they want to charge more and tier the internet. The internet is, in their words, becoming clogged up and as you say, "full capacity"... since many people are out there placing everything on line they can think of, why does the ISP have to pay to upgrade and not expect to pass the cost to the customer who is part of the congestion? The same could be said for Comcast, Cox, TWC, etc. How many of these players have cut off or sent warning letters to "bandwidth hogs?"
Cable companies chose to use their system to pass internet traffic as a means of extra income. Now, since the internet has matured and more and more data goes online, they are finding out that there needs to be more capacity just like there needed to be more than just the 3 TV networks.
said by fiberguy :Are we paying enough? Let's look.. Dial up modems, circa $20 a month per one computer. It also usually meant holding your phone line hostage or a second line for the computer.. that was for ONE computer. Dial up and a phone line was about $45 a month for about 30k on average. Cable HSI (since people like to bitch so much about it's price) is often LESS than most people paid for a dial up modem + phone line. Now, let's add to this that HSI can be shared among multiple computers, where dial up wasn't feasible to do so. In some homes, people had multiple dial up accounts even so the cost gets higher. And the more people you put online, in the same household, the greater demand is for that same bandwidth. Also, there was a time when the cable companies fought to keep routers off their networks because of the loss of revenue selling additional IP addresses.
said by fiberguy :As to the internet,... the internet, in my opinion, needs to slow down for a moment. There is a reason we have Cable TV and Satellite companies... they provide television viewing services. There is a reason that phone companies exists.. to provide telephone services. I personally want the internet, today, to remain what it is... a place to transfer data.. and not the kind that I can get on TV or the phone. The internet is trying to become EVERYTHING over night and it just isn't going to happen the way people want it to. Everyone wants to throw everything on it at one time and then cry foul when it can't handle it! No kidding! Then why are the cable companies trying to sell phone service too on those same lines? Maybe Comcast needs to stop selling their phone service. 
As for the Satellite companies, they are competing with cable and offering pay TV services to those where cable was not offered. They are not only competing but filling a niche.
said by fiberguy :So, the ISP is the one to foot the bill for everyone else's desire to explode and, again, as you say "we already pay enough"? I hate to say this, I have been against tiering of the internet as SBC started talking about a few months back, but with this thinking of yours, you have given me reason to now see a valid argument on the other side. SBC is doing what all telcos do. They want more income but don't want to invest in their own infrastructure. They are still going back to the days of their monopoly. I still remember the days when you had to rent phones and there were no plug in jacks. Answering machines finally hit the public in the 70's when they were out in the 40's.
said by fiberguy :I still want net neutrality, don't get me wrong, but companies are not in business to just exist and break even. Innovation comes with more than an idea - they have to be backed with money. Upgrades come with money.. that money comes with the fact that your product makes a profit.. profits go back into the system to enhance the network. If the product is flat, there is no money.. no money, no upgrade.. no upgrades - internet will max out and stay that way and BBR will continue to get plenty of hits for people looking for a place to bitch. Technology gets cheaper with volume. Almost always, early adopters will pay more. As more people subscribe to high speed, then the cost per subscriber goes down (depending on many other factors of course: competition, age of system, etc.)
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pb5k
more cowbell
Premium
join:2005-11-16
Glendale, AZ
·Cox HSI
| reply to fiberguy
You see this is what I don't get. Over in the EU where you can often get 20/1 ADSL2+ for $35 USD a month, there is no push for tiered internet access, despite the increased bandwidth consumption by consumers. This is also the case in Asia as well, where many consumers have had access to 50M/50M broadband at enviable prices while we're slobbering over 15/2 FIOs. This leads me to believe that this tiered internet nonsense is the product of American telco PR B.S.
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"When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'" --
Theodore Roosevelt | |
fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| reply to moonpuppy
MP,
you basically said the same thing I did. However, at the same time, you also dove a little deeper into what I was getting at.
Cable sending out the "bandwidth hog" messages is exactly what I am getting at. It's a way to control the use of the internet so that EVERYONE's traffic goes through, and not just that of the few resource intensive people. Remember, and regardless of what you can calculate out a constant stream of tranfer at 24 /7/ 30 days a month based on your speed, the user agreement spells it out pretty clear.. the service is for the average residential use. What is average? Simple - average out what the over all use of the home use is and that's average. It's not a constant stream of data transfer.
But, you are turning my post into a cable vs telephone argument; I was not. I was pointing out that everyone wants the internet to be everything. they want EVERYTHING shoved down the internet pipes as fast as yesterday. The internet is not ready to handle that.
What do I want on it? I don't mind video downloads, typical surving, file transfers.. but to stream television? NO! Not now.. it's not ready. Can you imagine what it would be like if everyone wanted to watch TV streams today? It's not going to happen.
As for telephone calls? No.. I don't like them either, however, telephone conversations of the cable company go over the last mile WHERE THERE IS capacity available. Even then, a telephone call uses a significantly low amount of BW. Still, I am not an advocate of telephone calls over the internet either - if you were reading, it's why I stated the very reason why the telephone company is in business.
Again, I agree with about 90% of what you are saying, however, like many, you are trying to read into a post more than you should.. you are trying to assume and tie me into a "party line" type of political discussion. If anyone knew me and actually followed me, my thoghts and reasons for things are my own. I do NOT follow what someone else wants me to think.. I am very capable of drawing my own conclusions and making my own decisions NO MATTER WHAT...
Oh, one last point to your reply - you spoke about "the more people you put on line, in the same household, the greater the demand... " Yea? no kidding. I was talking about the OP's comment of "we already pay enough" comment. I was talking about his silly comment and showing that people are getting FAR more for FAR less money as comapred to what they have evolved from over the past few years. As for routers being blocked? Yea.. at first.. the VERY firt launch of routers.. and why? Becuase many people couldn't figure them out to begin with and that so-called blockage was short lived.. VERY short lived. | |
fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| reply to pb5k
Again, you make what appears to be a valid point, but you, like many, don't take into consideration the "whole picture" when it comes to broadband and deployemnt costs.
It always comes back to the EU or an Asian country. The US is not as dense as these other countries. Asia stacks their people one above the other and the U.S. is more spread out.
Ok... Let me give you an example... look at a city like NY or SF. Compare that to a city like Norman Oklahoma or any city in CO. The landscape is spread out in the U.S. as in even the major metros are very spread out from one another. Sure, the last mile isn't a huge deal in many cases, but to connect all those cities together is. Not to mention that fact that we have that thing called the Single Family home where these other countries everyone wants to compare us to is big on the Multi Dwelling Unit.
People that like to see the greener grass on the other side need to realize that ours is just as green for our own make up.
If you will recall, as well, internet access in some of these other countries has ALWAYS been much more expensive that ours until recently. Don't you recal the 1.5 ADSL line that gave you X amount of transfer per month (sometimes as low as 5 or 10gb) before throttle down to 56k modem speed? And that was about $50 a month.
Moral of the story, - you can't compare one country to another and expect to get a valid outcome.
Simply look at these costs to JUST PASS a home here in the U.S. - that doesn't mean the house is connected,.. JUST PASSED with the feeder cables. Add another cost to hook them up. Now, add the cost to supply those services, and factor in the competition lowered prices, the prmotional give outs.. how much money has to be tied up by eager for return investors and the company profit pots to provide these services.. not to mention the U.S. consumer that wants everything for virtually nothing... or the greedy consumer that doesn't play by the rules (though want the providers to play by the rules) buy abusing the "new customer" promotion and hopping between companies. It all drives up the costs to all people using the service.. | |
moonpuppy
join:2000-08-21
Glen Burnie, MD
·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to fiberguy
said by fiberguy :MP, you basically said the same thing I did. However, at the same time, you also dove a little deeper into what I was getting at. You want to see the "whole picture" then you need to dive in deeper.
said by fiberguy :Cable sending out the "bandwidth hog" messages is exactly what I am getting at. It's a way to control the use of the internet so that EVERYONE's traffic goes through, and not just that of the few resource intensive people. Remember, and regardless of what you can calculate out a constant stream of transfer at 24 /7/ 30 days a month based on your speed, the user agreement spells it out pretty clear.. the service is for the average residential use. What is average? Simple - average out what the over all use of the home use is and that's average. It's not a constant stream of data transfer. First it was P2P, then it was VOIP. Is video conferencing next? My point is that broadband is capable of so much more however, because companies do not want to upgrade their infrastructures, they keep throttling back the speed and capacity. I augured that with the speed increase, there would be less traffic. Each packet would get to its destination faster and not have to wait as long as before.
We keep hearing time and time again about all these wonderful things that dial up can't do but high speed can and yet, in reality, the ISPs don't want us to use them because they cost bandwidth and money.
said by fiberguy :But, you are turning my post into a cable vs telephone argument; I was not. I was pointing out that everyone wants the internet to be everything. they want EVERYTHING shoved down the internet pipes as fast as yesterday. The internet is not ready to handle that. Ummm, then why make the point of telcos should only provide voice, cable and DBS provide TV, etc? Also, noticed that TWC was looking into a virtual DVR sending those same recorded programs down the same pipe as TV, internet and voice.
Ma Bell was doing data service before the cable companies had the idea of it.
said by fiberguy :What do I want on it? I don't mind video downloads, typical surfing, file transfers.. but to stream television? NO! Not now.. it's not ready. Can you imagine what it would be like if everyone wanted to watch TV streams today? It's not going to happen. And I agree but with more and more talk of IPTV on both sides, you can see where this is all going to end up. Something has to give.
said by fiberguy :As for telephone calls? No.. I don't like them either, however, telephone conversations of the cable company go over the last mile WHERE THERE IS capacity available. Even then, a telephone call uses a significantly low amount of BW. Still, I am not an advocate of telephone calls over the internet either - if you were reading, it's why I stated the very reason why the telephone company is in business. Then should the cable companies stop selling this? How about the VOIP companies? People have been doing PC to PC calls for years and because it has grown in popularity, more bandwidth is taken up. It shows that people will use something if they want it not because someone sells it.
said by fiberguy :Again, I agree with about 90% of what you are saying, however, like many, you are trying to read into a post more than you should.. you are trying to assume and tie me into a "party line" type of political discussion. If anyone knew me and actually followed me, my thoughts and reasons for things are my own. I do NOT follow what someone else wants me to think.. I am very capable of drawing my own conclusions and making my own decisions NO MATTER WHAT... Your posts speak for themselves. You tout the benefits of Comcast's voice service yet above, you clearly state that only the phone company should do voice. You are tailoring your views to the subject at hand but you are also playing both sides of the field.
Add this in the mix. Soon, everything will be IP related. Even the massive switching done by the phone company will need to be replaced and an IP solution (with a lot of fiber) might be the solution they are looking for. In any regards, bandwidth will need to be increased for future demands.
said by fiberguy :Oh, one last point to your reply - you spoke about "the more people you put on line, in the same household, the greater the demand... " Yea? no kidding. I was talking about the OP's comment of "we already pay enough" comment. I was talking about his silly comment and showing that people are getting FAR more for FAR less money as comapred to what they have evolved from over the past few years. As for routers being blocked? Yea.. at first.. the VERY firt launch of routers.. and why? Becuase many people couldn't figure them out to begin with and that so-called blockage was short lived.. VERY short lived. The blockage was short lived because they didn't want to devote the massive resources needed to find all of them. Imagine trying to find every router on the network. Or what if someone used 2 different systems at different times?
Also, we are no longer the one TV household of the 60's but rather the mutli-TV, VCR, DVD, cable (or sattelite) hookup, and computer households of the new millenia. (Kinda sad if you ask me.) One phone in the living room has given way to everyone having their own cell phones. When one area code could handle a state, now multiple are needed in some cities with all the phones, cells, faxes, etc.
The Cable Act of 1996 answered the question of should people pay per household or per connection. The OP seems to side with the law even though it covers TV and not internet. Who knows if another law comes into affect to say the very same thing. Even Comcast sells a family plan and Verizon FIOS gives you a wireless router for multiple connections.
All this is a straw man argument for not only upping capacity but upgrading equipment. No one wants to pay for it but everyone wants it. | |
FiL
Premium
join:2005-08-16
Silver Spring, MD
| reply to keyboard5684
Sorry. I thought English was read in all countrys. (least you got my point, i dont care about the grammer part)
I was confused on how ayone can think they can filter out specific content; even child porn is still running rampant on the web.
"It is the same as loading up your old 88 chevy with 10 fat people, not going to go well no matter how much you want to move those damn fat people."
Actually, that analogy is more so tied to their marketing and research then actual real world transmission of data. How can gigz, terabytes an such worth of data being flowing all over the net, and I still have 14 ping in my FPS shooter? Im not feelings the "slowdown" these guys wanna make you believe will come. Also, its not our fault their still using 88' Chevy's as their point of refernce. | |
Ahrenl
join:2004-10-26
North Andover, MA
 ·Verizon FIOS
| reply to pb5k
A tiered internet would only work if there was one owner; and then it only works if they exclude some people(data) even if they are willing to pay.
Since no one entity owns the entire infrastructure, tiering only works within each network, making it close to useless. Also if EVERYONE decides that their data is important and purchases the "upgrade" then we'll be right back where we were. In act the telco's could just tell you their tagging your data and do nothing.. You'd never know.. and you probably wouldn't be able to tell either. That's the beauty of this new fee structure. That and they can charge people that they don't offer service to, or that they will have any maintenance costs for. (Because their primary connection isn't to THEIR network)
The internet has a lot of capacity to spare, it just has some huge bottlenecks that only exist because incumbents have been milking it for decades (since the 80's). They could have started upgrading to fiber back then, and spread the cost out over 30 years.. Not to mention everything would have gotten cheaper (because that's what happens with technology as adoption increases) faster.. | |
Capharnaum
join:2006-06-19
Montreal, QC
| reply to fiberguy
My ISP is using only a fraction of its capacity.
The point is that upgrades is something natural that the telcos and the cable companies should do. They don't want to do it because if they use the same old stuff their profit increases year by year and they would rather "tier" than upgrade their network to give them 10 or 100 times the capacity.
That's the whole point of tiering. Making more money out of the old insfrastructure by limiting the customer.
On the free market, consumer demand dictactes the market. You can try to stop it for a while (tier it), but in the end, the inevitable will come and infrastructures will have to be changed again, and the cost won't be less at that time for the new technology. | |
backness
join:2005-07-08
K2P OW2
| reply to Ahrenl
lets not forget that once fiber is run to the home it remains as an asset to any company that can deliver content. That is the attitutde that gets me... It is not like they have to run fiber to every house every year once it is in i becomes an asset, as many other types of services can be delivered. You would think the north american audience would be more valuable than that! | |
moonpuppy
join:2000-08-21
Glen Burnie, MD
·Verizon Online DSL
| said by backness :lets not forget that once fiber is run to the home it remains as an asset to any company that can deliver content. That is the attitutde that gets me... It is not like they have to run fiber to every house every year once it is in i becomes an asset, as many other types of services can be delivered. You would think the north american audience would be more valuable than that! AND it is more robust and easier to maintain than copper which translates to fewer repairs (unless the homeowner is a moron and digs it up.) | |
neofate
Caveat Depascor
Premium
join:2003-11-11
Birmingham, AL
| reply to FiL
When my cable bill is already a cheap car payment, 130$,.. and goes even higher.. Is when they lose me. Cable companies already charge outrageous prices in the US.
Which is why I can't understand how certain companies can't keep their profit margin up.
Take on average 40-50$ a customer x customer base.. + PPV/On demand etc etc.. It's constant residual income.
The only argument I can see is having to constantly upgrade for technology and needs, but it's going to happen one way or another, and if the Companies want to go further into the outrageous range, another company will come in and undercut, even if they have to build over them.
One thing CC's could do to cut costs in the "long run" is start making it a priority to run Fiber past the Node and into the homes. This would drop Trouble calls due to signal issues, bad Coax etc significantly. As it is now, the current semantics of Coax are on the "edge" of working or having poor quality. It makes more sense to bring in an overkill for the inevitable future. IE: All digital in all markets, more QAM-256B HD, more streams,.. basically Clean Bandwidth. What can achieve that? How about light? 
I know it is expensive, but think about how much it costs them to maintain what they have. Then to have to come back and upgrade over X years ,.. It would be much more advantageous to leave room for growth, imo.
Also, the quality of service is questionable in many homes.. once everyone is all digital this quality won't be quite the issue.
But anyway, back to the exact topic -- That amount of money for the transfer of the movie I'm sure has some inflated equipment/overhead costs equated, but is still ridiculous.
One more thing -- an immediate resolution to some of this would be to utilize everyone's bandwidth as in "bit-torrent" hash style sharing for like programming.
That said, Docsis 3.0 is going to blow the roof off what currently resides.
--
/\/eofate | |
Ahrenl
join:2004-10-26
North Andover, MA
·Verizon FIOS
2 edits | Their profit margin is artificially depressed by large depreciated asset accounts which were allocated during merger mania. As a financial analyst we are actually taught this as the best method (vs. direct write offs, or goodwill application, which I guess it is), but when you overpay by billions and billions of dollars, this is what happens. The problem is when your accounting tricks replace your reality. | |
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