Dutch internet law

J

Jabberwocky

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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/23/netherlands_net_neutrality/

The Dutch have passed a law prohibiting internet providers from slowing down traffic unless it's to ease congestion, preserve security or block spam.

The Netherlands thus becomes the first European country to legislate a rulebook for what network operators can or can't do - and only the second country in the world to do so.

The law also bans advertisers from dropping cookies on PCs without the user's consent.

Operators will also be forbidden from charging based on access to services and applications, outlawing offerings such as an old-skool shell account, or low latency ISP for gamers.

It's all expected to hit mobile operators hard: Vodafone permits Skype but charges a fee to use it on smartphones, while T-Mobile blocks Skype and VoIP apps.

It's hard to see it lasting unmodified. But here we go: have a look for yourself. Here's a translation, courtesy of Bits of Freedom, of Article 7.4a of the new Dutch Telecommunications Act
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Thats a law I won`t mind here.
 
Jabberwocky said:
Neutrality would certainly make uncapped a lot better.
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The infrastructure needs to be in place first. Do we have the capability currently?

I am under the impression that the current situation is a necessary evil, rather than the ISP's wanting to hamstring certain aspects of their networks.
 
copacetic said:
The infrastructure needs to be in place first. Do we have the capability currently?

I am under the impression that the current situation is a necessary evil, rather than the ISP's wanting to hamstring certain aspects of their networks.
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I don't buy that for one second.

The only real congestion is DSLAM-side.

We have capacity of epic proportions internationally and how much "local" congestion can you see?
 
copacetic said:
Why do MWEB shape so much?
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I used MWEB for three days before saying **** that. OpenWeb Gold and its networks do a vastly superior job of offering uncapped access.

I think the biggest issue is that we've been suckered into believing that it's "good for us" for so long that we've become complacent. We have OODLES of international capacity available, what's holding us back? Why can certain capped services provide better quality than uncapped services OVER THE SAME BACKBONE? There are countries with much bigger bandwidth hogs than in ZA, with less international capacity.

I'm tired of the status quo and all the batsplatter nonsense that goes with it in this place.

There is no doubt that ISPs make more money by aggressively shaping traffic--it means that they have to purchase less capacity. However, there's a demand for better quality, more capacity and the removal of shapers. Look at this article: the Dutch government had to make it LAW that ISPs no longer be allowed to shape unless it is vital. There is NO WAY an ISP would kill off its cash cow willingly. Look at Telkom and how long they've held onto the local loop, high prices, double-charged line rental and other insanities.

A bully doesn't change its spots.

It's the job of independent authorities to protect customers. We all know what an emaciated waste of space ICASA is and how worthless any authority in ZA has ever been. There is no entity that looks out for us, and many of these businesses (ISPs, backbones, etc) only care about themselves.
 
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Lycanthrope said:
I used MWEB for three days before saying **** that. OpenWeb Gold and its networks do a vastly superior job of offering uncapped access.

I think the biggest issue is that we've been suckered into believing that it's "good for us" for so long that we've become complacent. We have OODLES of international capacity available, what's holding us back? Why can certain capped services provide better quality than uncapped services OVER THE SAME BACKBONE? There are countries with much bigger bandwidth hogs than in ZA, with less international capacity.

I'm tired of the status quo and all the batsplatter nonsense that goes with it in this place.

There is no doubt that ISPs make more money by aggressively shaping traffic--it means that they have to purchase less capacity. However, there's a demand for better quality, more capacity and the removal of shapers. Look at this article: the Dutch government had to make it LAW that ISPs no longer be allowed to shape unless it is vital. There is NO WAY an ISP would kill off its cash cow willingly. Look at Telkom and how long they've held onto the local loop, high prices, double-charged line rental and other insanities.

A bully doesn't change its spots.

It's the job of independent authorities to protect customers. We all know what an emaciated waste of space ICASA is and how worthless any authority in ZA has ever been. There is no entity that looks out for us, and many of these businesses (ISPs, backbones, etc) only care about themselves.
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I certainly don't disagree with the international capacity, as far as I understand, we are golden in that regard.

I don't really know what I am talking about wrt the ISP's, but I can't help but feel that they are doing their best within the infrastructure they have to work with, as all it would take is one ISP to offer an unbeatable deal, and that would be that.

That things need to change, there is no doubt at all. That ICASA need to get a fire in their trousers is a given. I just think that blaming the ISP's is the wrong focus at the moment.
 
copacetic said:
I certainly don't disagree with the international capacity, as far as I understand, we are golden in that regard.

I don't really know what I am talking about wrt the ISP's, but I can't help but feel that they are doing their best within the infrastructure they have to work with, as all it would take is one ISP to offer an unbeatable deal, and that would be that.

That things need to change, there is no doubt at all. That ICASA need to get a fire in their trousers is a given. I just think that blaming the ISP's is the wrong focus at the moment.
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I'd like it if someone could explain why everything still sucks technically vanilla salty balls in ZA regarding the internet, but until then, it just doesn't make sense why small countries, with less international bandwidth than we have, but higher broadband penetration haven't even heard the words, "shaping," "throttling" or "capping" before.

I just can't buy into this rubbish any more. Years ago people tried to justify Telkom's 3GB caps saying, "Who REALLY uses more than 3GBs a month without pirating?" Since I've been with OpenWeb Gold, I use about 120-150GB a month on gaming, browsing, YouTube and any other 100% legitimate use I can think of. I don't pirate. People are fickle and gullible and expect the worst in ZA and grow complacent and comfortable with it.

While I can't speak for ISPs in ZA (I know OpenWeb's MrBEEP would do his darndest if he could) the first-tier backbones don't give a crap and the only explanation I could come up with for why things remain the way they do is collusion. Why rock the boat if profits keep rolling in?
 
Lycanthrope said:
I used MWEB for three days before saying **** that. OpenWeb Gold and its networks do a vastly superior job of offering uncapped access.
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But it costs like R120 more for 4mbps AND it's still shaped?

* Gold is shaped on p2p, torrents, rapidshare and similar.
* Shaping includes NNTP. When the network is busy, Shaping will take place. During quiet times, shaping is relaxed.

I'd have a hard time believing it's any better than MWEB's uncapped 4Mbps. How do you convince anyone to switch with no guarantees?

My MWEB 4mbps performs nicely - 400KBps + from local and akamai with 120KBps on international torrents.
 
moer said:
But it costs like R120 more for 4mbps AND it's still shaped?

* Gold is shaped on p2p, torrents, rapidshare and similar.
* Shaping includes NNTP. When the network is busy, Shaping will take place. During quiet times, shaping is relaxed.

I'd have a hard time believing it's any better than MWEB's uncapped 4Mbps. How do you convince anyone to switch with no guarantees?

My MWEB 4mbps performs nicely - 400KBps + from local and akamai with 120KBps on international torrents.
Click to expand...

The only thing you can really do is use it and see. The products pretty much speak for themselves when you've used them and MrBEEP's support is world-class (I'm still waiting for someone from MWEB to get back to me :))

There are three prominent backbones:

IS - Apparently works well for torrents and news servers

Altech -- Perfect for streaming, gaming, VOIP but no torrents/news servers (at least during the day)

Vodacom Business -- Perfect for streaming, gaming and news servers but torrents are permanently shaped.

Any one of them works better than MWEB and depending on your needs you can find one that works best for you.

I wasted a lot of money "testing" MWEB.
 
Lycanthrope said:
The only thing you can really do is use it and see. The products pretty much speak for themselves when you've used them and MrBEEP's support is world-class (I'm still waiting for someone from MWEB to get back to me :))

There are three prominent backbones:

IS - Apparently works well for torrents and news servers

Altech -- Perfect for streaming, gaming, VOIP but no torrents/news servers (at least during the day)

Vodacom Business -- Perfect for streaming, gaming and news servers but torrents are permanently shaped.

Any one of them works better than MWEB and depending on your needs you can find one that works best for you.

I wasted a lot of money "testing" MWEB.
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MWeb performs quite good on filehosts and news servers.
Way better than IS products.
 
zeyad 001 said:
MWeb performs quite good on filehosts and news servers.
Way better than IS products.
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I runno about that--I don't use news servers and the only file host I use is Dropbox, but I get full-speed both ways. I can't say the same for my MWEB account.
 
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