FCC Chief: AT&T Can Limit Net Bandwidth

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MaD

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This doesn't sound good at all..

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FCC Chief: AT&T Can Limit Net Bandwidth

FCC Chief Kevin Martin yesterday gave his support to AT&T and other telcos who want to be able to limit bandwidth to sites like Google, unless those sites pay extortion fees. Martin made it clear in a speech yesterday that he supports such a a "tiered" Internet.

Martin told attendees at the TelecomNext show that telcos should be allowed to charge web sites whatever they want if those sites want adequate bandwidth.

He threw in his lot with AT&T, Verizon, and the other telcos, who are no doubt salivating at the prospect at charging whatever the market can bear.

He did throw a bone to those who favor so-called "net neutrality" -- the idea that telcos and other ISPs should not be allowed to limit services or bandwidth, or charge sites extra fees. He said that the FCC "has the authority necessary" to enforce network neutrality violations. He added that it had done so already, when it stepped in to stop an ISP from blocking Vonage VoIP service.

But Martin's interpretation of "net neutrality" is far too narrow, and almost besides the point. By siding with telcos who want to be able to offer adequate bandwidth to sites that pay up, and to limit bandwidth to sites that don't, he'll help kill off new sites that can't afford to fork over the money.

That could help end Internet and network innovation, and we simply can't afford that.

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We probably don't have to worry about the same problem in South Africa because bandwidth prices are so high already that having large bandwidth consumption would cost a company millions every month already so this situation has already happened here.. sadly.
 
i don't think it will ever be a real problem, unless a player has market dominance (no competition). if my ISP starts blocking or slowing down google, i will just switch to one that doesn't.

do you really think an ISP will be able to block us from using google... we will just use a website that has an API link into google... www.aardvark.co.za for example.

on the other hand, if the fees are not exorbitant, google and the likes might just pay up to keep the peace.
 
tibby.dude said:
Fu*ck AT&T .... America is not the center of the universe.
Click to expand...
Dont be naive - of course it is.

@ajax - why not delete the post? :)
 
The internet is designed to route around obstacles. Any ISP that tries to limit access to a site such as google will merely have a flood of angry customers flooding their help center asking why they can't access Google/Yahoo. Shortly after that new customers will slow to a trickle and current customers will move elsewhere.

I heard someone say that one of the most common searches on google is "www.yahoo.com", I kid you not.
 
I don't think that the reporter read the articles (the ones he linked to in his own article) very well. From what I could gather, AT&T, FCC and others stated that no network degrageation would occur.

AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre basically retracted his " that Google and Vonage were "nuts" for thinking they could "use these [AT&T's] pipes for free" comment with "Any provider who blocks access to the Internet is inviting customers to find another provider, nor will we degrade [Internet access]. Period, end of story."
 
this is really a problem that south africa is currently suffering from.

if say in america at&t want to charge google x amount extra to host their high bandwidth site. then google can simply move to an overseas provider (somewhere in europe) and have their site moved there. so no more network prioritization.

but ppl in america trying to access google are gonna have a hard time getting good speeds, but google wont be paying for it. if at&t limit traffic to a provider overseas or something more specific like ip shaping,which will effectively be adsl shaping on a small scale. we havent even gotten to bottlenecks from ppl trying to access google over congested international links yet.

at the end of the day everything is gonna boil downto ppl complaining to their isps about slow speeds, its gonna cos isp's the most at the end of the day trying to get efficient routing (if they build their own networks -not really sure) or even an isp paying googles bill for prioritization. google wont give in to the american phone companies. it was never googles way.

we experiance this right now, we just havent accepted it.
 
Another thing i was thinking about recently if you consider paying a flat rate for the access portion, the teleco's are basically loosing out as the adoption goes up and other providers provide content. ie with the growing demand for access costs to go down and people spending on content, basically teleco's providing just access are getting a less. Also that means that if your provider provides content more expensively, you just get it from where ever it is cheaper :) esp with the american consumer protection they have.

Of cause in SA, where we pay for the traffic :( Telkom can't exactly do the same since the cost is being passed down to the user directly (and with profit) but because we don't have a good consumer watch group etc them e.g. making voip less stable is not fought against as it was in the states.
 
It's insanity. Companies like google are ALREADY PAYING to have their sites given good traffic, by buying their pipes from these very providers.

Companies like AT&T are just pissed that they're not buying ENOUGH bandwidth from them and buying from varying different providers.

The whole thing is political BS. The fact is that big companies are paying megabucks to have their services on the Net.
 
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