NYTimes.com: Charging by the Byte to Curb Internet Traffic
June 15, 2008

Some people use the Internet simply to check e-mail and look up phone numbers. Others are online all day, downloading big video and music files.

For years, both kinds of Web surfers have paid the same price for access. But now three of the country’s largest Internet service providers are threatening to clamp down on their most active subscribers by placing monthly limits on their online activity.

One of them, Time Warner Cable<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/time-warner-cable-inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org>, began a trial of “Internet metering” in one Texas city early this month, asking customers to select a monthly plan and pay surcharges when they exceed their bandwidth limit. The idea is that people who use the network more heavily should pay more, the way they do for water, electricity, or, in many cases, cellphone minutes.

That same week, Comcast<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/comcast_corporation/index.html?inline=nyt-org> said that it would expand on a strategy it uses to manage Internet traffic: slowing down the connections of the heaviest users, so-called bandwidth hogs, at peak times.

AT&T<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/at_and_t/index.html?inline=nyt-org> also said Thursday that limits on heavy use were inevitable and that it was considering pricing based on data volume. “Based on current trends, total bandwidth in the AT&T network will increase by four times over the next three years,” the company said in a statement.

All three companies say that placing caps on broadband use will ensure fair access for all users.

Internet metering is a throwback to the days of dial-up service, but at a time when video and interactive games are becoming popular, the experiments could have huge implications for the future of the Web.

Millions of people are moving online to watch movies and television shows, play multiplayer video games and talk over videoconference with family and friends. And media companies are trying to get people to spend more time online: the Disneys and NBCs of the world keep adding television shows and movies to their Web sites, giving consumers convenient entertainment that soaks up a lot of bandwidth.

Moreover, companies with physical storefronts, like Blockbuster <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/blockbuster_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org>, are moving toward digital delivery of entertainment. And new distributors of online content — think YouTube — are relying on an open data spigot to make their business plans work.

Critics of the bandwidth limits say that metering and capping network use could hold back the inevitable converge

<snip>



The Internet is not like electricity!! The idea that are using it up is stupid at best.

Remember that ISDN failed because no matter how technically better it was the big feature was bringing back usage charges ­ but fortunately the unmeasured usage of POTS allowed us to discover the Internet. Today with capacity increasing at Moore’s law speeds the idea that we are using up the Internet is simply a self-serving lie.

My own informal testing via my Verizon connection has shown the amount of “bandwidth” that I get connecting cross the country has more than doubled in the last year ­ what’s the problem ATT is trying to solve other than preying on its customers?

The ability to impose these charges is something is, in itself, evidence of extreme marketplace control.

Limiting our ability to communicate in the face of abundance is a violation of the US First Amendment.

~ Bob

--

People seem to be missing the point.

Since bit *rate*, not bit mass, is the instantaneously-exhaustable
resource in packet network, if they were actually worried about
network engineering, they'd be going to the burstable charging
model which is known to worth both technically and economically.
it relates the charges directly to the exhaustion of the
finite resource - bit *rate*, not bit mass.

but they aren't using charge pushback that does anything useful
from an engineering perspective. Therefore i conclude they are doing
it for a different reason and the "network engineering" claims
are just red herrings to distract them what don't know any better.

so what *would* be a reason for limiting bit mass if it
doesn't correlate with network performance?

hmmmm - charging for mass will obviously provide an incentive
to move fewer bits, which means not moving *big files*.  why would
they care about file size? oops! if it's expensive to move big files,
they kneecap downloading "large scale media" (read "movies", "tv", etc)
without having to start a fight over some selected types of information
being inherently more valuable than others.

I conclude this is all about controlling file-sharing, not because
of any performance impacts, but because of the sharing, per se.
it becomes a crude form of Digital Denial Management.

the fact this impacts information freely created and shared as
well as some information assumed to be copyright-infected is
no skin off their noses. the more publicly-available media,
the less people will pay-per-view for studio content,
so this collateral damage is actually a feature, not a bug.

So we get to this question: how should the public react to
bit-moving providers who gerrymander the service offering
to the benefit of their Media Masters? If there were any
real competitive alternatives, they could vote with their feet.
without that alternative, however, are they simply at the mercy
of the media giants to bend everything to their will?
at what point does this become anti-competitive behavior?
does anyone in gubmint care about that anymore?

harumph
-mo
--