SBC Wants to Make Google Pay

If you are using Opera, you are witnessing it's broken caching system. But it's OK. It's what makes it faster.

So where does this end?

Blizzard makes millions using broadband with WOW. Should they then be required to pay SBC and cable companies because their customer's choose to use Blizzard's service?

My wife uses IWON as her homepage, should IWON have to pay SBC a fee because my wife chooses to use that "portal"?

I like to play computer games, should those companies have to start paying all broadband providers because they make money from a service I choose to use?

I just purchased some software and used my BB connection to download it, should they forward a chunk to SBC?

You see where this is going? I purchase a broadband internet connection from them. They think just because someone else makes additional money because of my use of it, they should get a piece of it. Well they don't deserve it, regardless of how you try to angle this.

SBC may not directly block Google or Yahoo -- they would just degrade their service to the point you might actually prefer SBC's garbage to Google or Yahoo.

Think about that for a minute.

And then pray the FCC requires naked DSL and net neutrality before approving the SBC/AT&T merger.

I don't see why you would use the word "shady" to describe this item - I came across that Business Week article before I ever read about it here on BBR and had almost EXACTLY the same take on it as is being posted here. If Ed gets away with this, it will be open season every provider of content. Oh, you have a popular destination or service? Well, the Podunk Communications Corporation demands you pay us, or we're going to block our customers' access to your service/site!

If the FCC doesn't nip this in the bud, watch for organized crime to start buying ISP's - imagine, they can shake businesses down without ever leaving the comforts of home!

I personally hope Google tells Ed to go pound sand - when Ed's customers find they can't get to what is arguably one of the top destinations on the web, I suspect many are going to start looking for other broadband providers!

This is insane, peering handles problems with pipe usage, he's going into content and value of the traffic. That is NOT what he's invested in. Limiting internet access for corporate greed is not that different to limiting traffic for government censorship. Essentially both are censoring, just the target of censorship varies by the censor

This is about the most rational and clear explanation and dissection of the article to date.

Might I add that he is using the utility model of service for an unregulated service, which he as the CEO of a company that does both (provide regulated and unregulated services) he should understand the difference.

I think in the end the issue is really going to come to a head where VoIP services are perceived as having a competitive advantage over other voice services, either bundeled in with cable or actual POTS.

Absolutely. However the wildcard being whether SBC and other opportunists would be successful in making the right political contributions to create some form of new legislation or amending the Telecomm Act.

I'd deploy muni wireless and alternative fiber links directly to customer's homes in key markets. Google shouldn't allow sbc to MONOPOLIZE (a-la $1 per minute AT&T long distance calls) the internet by double dipping into those google profits. Just make a better product, key markets being SanFrancisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, etc... Google can also exploit the fact that SBC has pushed back deployments in lots of suburbs. Compete by getting franchise agreements and deploy fiber or gigabit wireless.

I think many have missed one other odd but interesting point.

The ONLY other thing I could think of is an arguement that Google, MSN, Yahoo!, Ask etc are sending bots and crawlers out and getting information and basically using the "pipes" of other services and ISP's to collect content and "value".
Google pays for it's bandwith inbound and outbound but they use a very high portion of that outbound bandwith in an automated function that is "relentless".

From my own website stats I have noticed that MSN, Yahoo Slurp, and zGoogle bots et al. have recently become more aggresive and active in hitting my websites. It's not a huge difference maybe an extra 5mb or so a month...BUT multiply that times how many sites, and how much capacity...etc and so on.

Now granted I'm actually paying for the bandwidth in my service...and you can make inroads to stop the "bots"....
but to what end...not being listed. Also many of the bots will index well below the top domain and into archives and the like...neat for numbers of pages but a "drain" on the "pipes".

How concerned are you about Internet upstarts like Google (GOOG ), MSN, Vonage, and others?

The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! (YHOO ) or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!

I don't live in SBC land but isn't SBC and Yahoo! at least business partners? (read above)

It sounds more like the same argument on other articles about limiting VOIP from providers like Vonage. Except now some CEO "thought" up the idea and wants to embrace it. Because hey, we know that sbc VoIP (phone) is the best and any competitors are not.

It also sounds like the stupid patent articles a while back. All competitors that are being accessed over my network are required to pay me every time they are accessed. uh huh and every time you type "@" I get $20.

that would mean no more email for us SBC users who use our addys!

why buy Comcast Charter is selling off certain markets. SBC would just pick them up if they wanted in on that.

If I was SBC shareholder, I would sell my shares right away after getting this insight into mindset of managers at SBC. They are such morons to think the way the do. They are still living in 20 years ago world. They deserve a bullet right in their head and no compassion when they go bankrupt.

Filtering web access is WRONG WRONG DIRTY AND WRONG!

Ah, but how the guy is talking it sounds like he's going after his foot with a bazooka. It almost sounds like he thinks that *any* web site or Internet-enabled service should pay them to "go through their pipe." Basically, if he takes this to the logical conclusion, SBC's customers won't be able to access any content on the Internet unless that content provider has first paid SBC's "pipe access" charge.

Of course, I don't see very many content providers doing this. The small operators won't be able to afford it and the big operators won't want to set a precedent of having to pay every ISP.

So SBC's customers will get a nice broadband connection and only be able to access a handful of websites. (SBC.com, perhaps some government sites that SBC graciously gives a free pass to, and the very few websites that actually pay.) This will cause quite the lovely uproar. (How would you feel if you paid for a 5mbps connection and the fine print stated that you'd only be able to access a select list of a couple dozen websites?) SBC will either find customers deserting them in a giant stampede or they will undo the block.

Or, the more likely scenario, Whitacre has someone do a "feasibility study" on this idea, finds out that it'll be a huge disaster, and they never speak of it again. (He seems to me the kind of person that likes to make grand statements about things he knows little to nothing about.)

The phrase "what an a$$hole" comes to mind when I read this quote. What the heck are the subscribers paying their access fees for and where is the money going? You pay your ISP fee and they use some of that money to upgrade and improve their infrasctructure. They are probably diverting all of that money to their CEO's pocket and he now wants more. I hope Google and Yahoo tear him a new one.

either the "retarded comment of the year",

or possibly the potential to be the number 1 darwin award for an ISP.

No we should refer to him as half-whit.
I think BW is paid for by subscriber last I checked.

But it will be funny in a year from now google will be bigger than SBC and the foot will be on the other shoe.

And google will have the last laugh.

Someone should explain to Mr. 1/2whit that running down the stairs with an ice pick in your hand is dangerous.

.............

As a BB provider who owns his own pipes I have this to say.
I charge my customers a fee for access this fee is based on.

Port Charges to use the network.
BW fees charged by Upstream based on average per user use.
A small fee to keep me in bussiness.

That said.
I want my customers to:
Use VOIP - if I could find a cheap enough wholesale account I would include it like email.
I want people to use google - yahoo - thumbzilla etc.
Why ??

Because if they don't access content they don't need BB and if they don't need BB I am out of business.

I have a feeling a lot of little Co's like mine are more the broadband future in America than Comcast & SBC.

my $.02

Please feel free to Flame

Love & bullets.

A CEO who uses ain't should not be a CEO. Who want Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn to run a large corporation. If FTTH was free, then I could understand the argument. SBC will not be able to do this though, since any realistic attempt to do this will bring on a slew of lawsuits.

"What now? Let me tell you what now. I'ma call a coupla hard, pipe-hittin' n***ers, who'll go to work on the websites here with a pair of pliers and a blow torch....I'ma get medieval on your a**."

SBC CEO forget that their customers that are using Google are already paying for the pipe.

If you read it properly, it says Google AND Yahoo........

A tad greedy?Try more like kill there own mother to get a buck!!SBC and all like them need to be taken out and shot.

I would expect that there's some conflict here, as SBC clearly brands its Internet service as
'SBC Yahoo!' - I would expect that there is already some cash flow here between the 2 companies. What's next - SBC/Yahoo having a spat similar to Cogentco/Level 3 ?

I wonder if Ed is thinking of taking it the other way? I mean, why not charge his customers for the bandwidth they are using? That way, he'll get Google, Yahoo and all the others delivering content to customers.

Nice to see that Ma Bell is coming back--like Terminator 2. You smash it to bits and they slowly re-accrete and come back just as strong as before.

I may already be 'flocking' to cable due to these "New and Improved" pricing set for Nov 1.

If the company actually starts blocking certain web sites, that would probably be the bucket-kicker for the company's residential (and possibly business) accounts.

I am sure one of the biggest class-action lawsuits of our time would quickly follow.

I wonder if they'll apply this to plain old phone service as well. I can see the customer service calls now:

---
Customer: I just tried to call a business but all's I get get is a fast-busy tone.

SBC: It appears that that business has not paid our "pipe access" charge. You'll just have to call someone else.

Customer: OK. Thanks. I'll do that.
---

Yeah, right - like THAT's gonna happen!

L3 did it so they could charge Cogent. Now SBC thinks that they can do it. Just because they're peered together.

And it doesnt say anything about filtering it just says they want paid and even says Yahoo! not just Google.

Agree with you. BTW--FCC just approved the merger. 3 states to go till it closes.