“Dice predicted that IPv4 IPs would be completely allocated in the next 18 months.  Obviously (if this is true), they are interested in having people know something about IPv6 so they can have such expertise in their job exchange.

Do we as users of ipHouse need to be concerned about hardware, software, other implications of this — DSL, DNS, etc., etc. …”

Our network engineer Doug McIntyre responded and sent this to our customer:

The popular press picking up news about the pending IPv4 exhaustion is pretty much high gloss over any of the real meat of the matter.   The effects that this will have on the average user in the United States will be nil for at least 5 years if not longer. ISPs and the regional registrars will be sitting on their IPv4 pools, and there may be a space crunch if some new ISP takes off that can connect millions of devices in short order.  That could be read as – wireless carrier or cable company, but these companies have a large amount of IP space already.  Where the current crunch has been for some time, is in Asia.  China alone is quoted at having something on the order of 400 million people now on the Net.

IPv6 has been in testing for ages. I had IPv6 tunnels going in the 1990′s for the ISP I was working for at the time.  Needless to say, the ipHouse network core is full IPv6 routing.  Our website is available via IPv6:

$ dig +noall +answer www.iphouse.com aaaa
 www.iphouse.com.      597      IN      AAAA      2001:4980:0:4000::1

In fact, many of our servers are using IPv6; DNS, SMTP, POP, IMAP, members, ipMom, and NOC servers have been using IPv6 since October 2010.

Implementing IPv6 for hosting customers is very straightforward.  We’ve been doing it on a case by case basis as colocation customers request it.

Right now, one big issue is the consumer grade CPE equipment Those hardware manufacturers can’t be bothered to do anything until they absolutely need to.  As a result, most DSL boxes can’t do IPv6 connectivity natively to this day.  All the major enterprise network hardware can though.  Obviously all of our stuff does it just fine (Cisco, Juniper, F5, Fortigate).

How this will all play out in the end years down the road is, probably in Asia first, the lack of IPv4 addresses will start forcing access customers there only be able to get IPv6 addresses for their connections.  Thus, any content provider (ie. Google, Facebook, JoeBob Store) will be either forced to have a native IPv6 presence or their content will only be accessible through third party proxy gateways that convert it to IPv4.  (The first two companies I named already have IPv6 presence, it’s the little guys that may have to worry)  When the big IPv6 to 4 proxy gateways get so overloaded to be unusable any longer, those with native IPv6 presence will get the business that all these consumers are driving.

For people already connected here is the US, there will be not much noticeable change at all. Eventually the CPE access devices driven by the requirements in Asia will trickle back to the US, and people here will be able to have access in either IPv4 or IPv6.  If you’ve got an IPv4 address today, as most US connections do, you’ll be fine.  There is very little reason for content providers to disable IPv4 when the vast majority of customers are accessing them via IPv4.

A few days later we got this question about IPv6:

“Wondering what your plans are to support this with your home customers.  I have a Cisco 678 modem that I’m guessing doesn’t support it, but thought that maybe tunnels could be setup or something.  DNS might be a question, too.  Just thought I’d ask, because I know it’s just on the horizon.”

Again, our man Doug answered the question:

Our website is fully up on IPv6, as well as DNS, and the rest of our network.   We do offer native IPv6 DSL connections, but as you state the 678 doesn’t support it.  In fact, there’s hardly *any* consumer grade hardware that supports native IPv6.  You can do it with Cisco IOS based hardware (ie. Cisco 887), or by hacking some of the other consumer stuff and putting the OpenWRT OS on them.   Doing a tunnel is easy enough, but its probably easier for you just to go to HE’s Tunnelbroker.net service and have it done automatically by them.  Most of the IPv6 peer interconnects happen where their tunnels terminate anyway, plus they offer a lot of tutorials and such there.  If you do want the tunnel to terminate here just let me know.

The customer followed up and confirmed to us what we suspected:

“Just ran into this that confirmed that Cisco isn’t doing ipv6 for consumers but Netgear appears to be:  http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/020811-cisco-linksys-ipv6.html “

So how does IPv6 affect our customers?  It doesn’t affect them – yet.   Once IPv6 becomes the only address available to an end users, the content they want  access to  needs to be available via IPv6, and content providers will make sure they can be seen.

If you’ve got technical questions or comments, send them our way.  We love to talk tech.

-Peace

Bil

Visit Challenge.gov to see the details on how you can participate.  Good luck to all the entrants!

Peace.

-Bil

What’s interesting is that we had bought a Disney CD years earlier with this song on it but it didn’t become popular with my kids until they discovered the song on Youtube. I guess video didn’t quite kill the radio star.

Today my son uses Youtube to play music while he’s online. He’s not watching the video, he’s just got the music in the background.  I find it fascinating how his use of Youtube has come full circle, just like how I left MTV on in the background.  It’s just a LITTLE outside the norm, or maybe it is the norm.  In either case, it’s also an interesting use of bandwidth, to say the least…  My sons love Youtube.  To them it’s free music, and art.  It inspires them to do crazy antics and videotape themselves doing the crazy antics.

The link between the consumption of entertainment and how business operates can be simple.  An artist creates a piece of art.  I see the art at a show and finding value in it, I pay the artist for the art.  But it can also be complex.  It can be multi-tiered, with numerous middle-men between the artist and the consumer.  Any time you watch an episode of TV, there are numerous artists combining their talents to provide you with a consumable product that you pay for, albeit incredibly indirectly. We rely on large corporations to pay these artists so we can get this content cheaply.  We LOVE our MTV.

The day the music died.

As I was writing this post, I was researching (watching) some video content on Youtube.  As I watched, I tried to predict what will happen to Youtube in the next few years.  I feel we’re at a crossroads.  I really can’t tell what will happen next…

For the followers of this blog, you know how I feel about Net Neutrality.  I’ve felt this way for the last decade.  I’ve been worried about a completely vertical Internet, where the content is owned by a distribution network (read Phone/Cable Company) and access to the content is restricted to members of the distribution network.

During my drive in today I heard this story on NPR about the FCC voting on FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s proposed rules governing net neutrality.  Earlier this month Genachowski gave remarks on preserving Internet freedom and openness.  When I read the speech I felt that the compromise that the FCC is giving the wireline and wireless providers is too much.  The FCC is supposed to protect consumers.  The protections corporations are granted in these rules are broad.  It will be up to the consumer to protect themselves against possible wrongdoings from their provider.

Maybe Vader some day later…

It’s now late afternoon on the east coast and the FCC did vote to approve the proposed rules.  Here is a link to an excerpt of the order and ruling.  Most notably, I liked this segment:

“In light of each of these concerns, as a general matter, it is unlikely that pay for priority would satisfy the “no unreasonable discrimination” standard. The practice of a broadband Internet access service provider prioritizing its own content, applications, or services, or those of its affiliates, would raise the same significant concerns and would be subject to the same standards and considerations in evaluating reasonableness as third-party pay-for-priority arrangements.”

I congratulate the FCC for taking a step to protect consumers and the Internet as a whole.  Thank you!

My only question now is, will it be enough?

Peace.

-Bil

I know that already, tell me something good?

As many of our customers know, our roots are in the Internet access world.  Some of us around here have been doing the online thing since the mid 80′s. (seriously)  If we’ve learned one thing over the last 25 years is that people will consume data for a fixed amount of time.  It’s roughly 4 hours per day.  Anything more than that and we suggest an intervention.

All kidding aside, we have seen a steady growth in consumption of bandwidth from our customers. It’s because there is an explosion of ever increasing high quality data available to them.  I think it’s an odd twist on Moore’s law. But if consumers have come to expect a doubling of performance every 2 years, then we should be able to turn that into a mechanism to extract more revenue from them, right?

Well, maybe.  Here’s why I don’t see that happening.

It’s because the Internet access world comes from the telephone world.  A world where it was expected that a voice line subscriber wouldn’t use the phone for more than 4 hours per day.  And even if you did, you can only max out at 24 hours per day.  That’s the max a subscriber could use.  No matter how many words you spoke on the phone, the most you could use was 24 hours.  Simply put, it was billing for service based on time.

“I got something that will sure ’nuff set your stuff on fire”

Along comes the Internet and billing for time was annihilated in the rush to get subscribers online.  Large and small, Internet access companies, telephone companies, and cable companies rushed to get subscribers online.   These companies built out networks and hooked up subscribers and enjoyed huge profits.  They certainly missed billing for time, but seriously, the bandwidth the subscribers were using was minuscule.  The unanimous chorus was “We’re making money hand over fist, let’s enjoy this for a bit.”

And they did.

The Internet access providers adopted billing for services based on a flat rate. “Pay me $19.95 a month and you can have all the Internet you can eat.”  This worked great.  The outlying users who were pushing big piles of bits around gladly paid a little more for higher capacity, but in general, the trend has been for the Internet access providers to offer more and more bandwidth for less and less per month. Who was offering a 100Mbps Internet connection for $30.00 per month?

So…Tell me something good.

Then along comes the digitization of everything and I mean EVERYTHING and the world changed.  Now those Internet access providers are wondering how to keep giving subscribers more bandwidth without getting more revenue.  It’s illogical to say the least.  In the old days, if you used more minutes or hours, you paid more money.  But now, you don’t pay more money to the access provider, you just download more.  If you pay anyone, it’s the content source, not your access provider.

Take these five destinations, iTunes, Pandora, Youtube, Hulu, Netflix.  They didn’t exist 10 years ago and now my family cannot live without them.  Each of these behemoths directs a perfect storm of traffic onto my home network.  I dare say, they deliver heavy traffic to anyone who visits them.  Now multiply this by 100,000 or 500,000 or 10,000,000.  Do you see what will happen to the Internet access provider?  Wait, didn’t we just talk about this last week?

“What I got to give will sure ’nuff do you good.”

The FCC report plainly states that about 68% of reportable Internet access service connections were too slow in both the downstream and upstream directions, or too slow in a single direction, to meet the broadband availability benchmark adopted in the Sixth Broadband Deployment Report.

Well duh.  As I already said, this report doesn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.

What we know is this; Our subscribers are making do with what was sold as broadband a few years ago for one of three reasons: It is all they can afford, it’s all they can receive, or it’s all they need.

In many cases we have subscribers leave us because they want faster speeds.  Our subscribers end up going to cable or Qwest directly because, thanks to the FCC, we’re not allowed to sell the higher capacity services Qwest offers.  That reminds me, we know one more thing.  Internet access providers do not have any incentive to increase broadband capacity because there isn’t any competition for the wireline providers.

Yet.

We might actually see competition once the wireless players are pushing the bits the wireline providers are pushing (if the technology improves enough).  Until that time, we’ve got to live within the online world that’s available to us, at the speed that’s available where we live.

You see, I’ve got DSL at home and that’s what I tell my kids.  Sadly, we’re all usually online at the same time so you can imagine the traffic load we create.  In our defense, we’re way under 4 hours per day, so stop thinking about that intervention.  Ok, I’m going to go listen to Rufus & Chaka Khan again and wish for something good.

Peace.

-Bil

The FCC called Comcast on Monday and was quick to question Comcast about the press release Level 3 issued.  Comcast, in a brilliant move, is trying to turn this entire matter into a peering dispute.  In a letter Comcast sent to the FCC (PDF of the letter), Comcast claims that Level 3 is becoming a CDN and is inappropriately using their peering relationship with Comcast.   Comcast further claims “Level 3 would more than double the amount of traffic it sends to Comcast – which would result in a traffic imbalance that could be in the range of about 5:1.”  As I said in my previous post, when you serve a large number of end users, there will be a traffic imbalance.  Their estimated ratio isn’t far off from what we experience today.  What does Comcast expect?  Fully balanced traffic?

Comcast readily admits that the Netflix traffic was on the Comcast network before the agreement between Level 3 and Netflix.   If the traffic was already there, why is Comcast so upset that Level 3 is delivering Netflix content versus the old method (whatever that was)?  I think I know…

Comcast indicates that the CDN networks are in “mutually acceptable commercial arrangements” with Comcast.  If the CDN’s are paying Comcast for access to the Comcast network, it would explain why Comcast is upset.  Comcast is in jeopardy of losing the revenue from the CDN’s.  But that’s too simple and it seems far fetched.

A CDN typically charges it’s customers (who are extremely content heavy) to distribute content to ISPs and end users.  An ISP who has end users, like Comcast, would LOVE to have a CDN node on their network for the sole reason of NOT getting that content over THEIR peering connections.  It’s a simple case of getting the content closer to the end user to minimize the impact on the backbone and reduce network load.  I can see an ISP charging a CDN for access onto their network, but traditionally, ISP’s and CDN’s have had relationships that are “Settlement-free”; the CDN and the ISP would “peer” to reduce traffic costs to the ISP.

I see by the Comcast Peering Policy that Level 3 meets the requirements to be a peer.  Importantly, most CDN’s do not fit into the peering requirements. For one, CDN’s don’t have a national backbone network of their own.  For two, CDN’s don’t provide connectivity, they provide Content.

All that said, the streaming CDNs are usually located at major peering points, not within ISP networks.   The CDN’s peer with the Tier 1 providers at the major peering points because it makes sense from the CDN’s perspective.  The CDN’s have a large capital outlay for infrastructure and it is fiscally responsible to leverage that infrastructure against multiple Tier 1 providers instead of just one.

But what about the backscatter?

So far, everything in the Comcast letter is just a bunch of posturing.  Not obfuscation.  But then I read this in the Comcast letter:

“Content delivery networks (“CDNs”), such as Akamai, Limelight, and Amazon CloudFront, are not Internet backbone providers. Their business involves sending significantly more traffic than they receive. For that reason they typically purchase services (“paid interconnection”) from Internet backbone providers. This description is not just relevant to how Comcast operates – rather, it is a characterization of the way the Internet market works, here and around the world.”

OMFG.  Comcast has some very well paid wordsmiths on staff.  This paragraph leads one to believe that CDN’s purchase services because they send “significantly more traffic than they receive”.  This is so smooth I missed it the first time.  And it sounds so logical that I nearly missed it the second time.  It’s a bold faced mis-direction worthy of Sigmund Neuberger (The Great Lafayette)!  Comcast is indicating that CDN’s purchase services (transit) because they send more traffic than they receive (an implied imbalance) but the REAL reason CDN’s purchase services is because they don’t own any network backbone infrastructure!

CDN’s purchase colocation or access services at peering points or from ISP’s in order to deliver their customers content to end users.  Because CDN’s do not have infrastructure, and are NOT Tier 1 access providers, they cannot peer with other Tier 1 access providers.  But Level 3 is a Tier 1 access provider.  They’re peering with Comcast.  And Comcast is pissed that Level 3 is a CDN AND a Tier 1 access provider.  The Comcast letter is trying to pin Level 3 into the CDN role.  If Comcast is successful at blowing smoke up the FCC’s posterior, they have won the battle and possibly the war.

Another Tidbit:

Hidden within the Comcast letter is a telling fact.  Prior to this mess Comcast and Level 3 had 27 ports that they peered across.  That’s roughly 270 Gbit/s.  As part of this, Level 3 asks to ADD 27 or 30 new ports, roughly DOUBLING the peering capacity.  Comcast balks and only adds 6 new ports to the existing 27 ports.  And somehow now the traffic flow should be “just barely within the generally accepted bounds of a roughly balanced traffic exchange between the parties”.

Huh?

Adding 22% more capacity to the peering arrangement might change the balance of the traffic flow?

How?

The math doesn’t add up.

Let’s make an assumption that the traffic flow from Level 3 is roughly a 2:1 ratio, as per the estimate from Comcast that “Level 3 would more than double the amount of traffic it sends to Comcast – which would result in a traffic imbalance that could be in the range of about 5:1.”

So, with 270 Gbit/s capacity, a 2:1 ratio at worst case would be: 250 Gbit/s of traffic from Level 3 and 125 Gbit/s of traffic from Comcast.  Obviously, adding any amount of capacity does not change the ratio of the original 270 Gbit/s capacity.  That ratio only changes if the traffic flow from Level 3 was flat-lining and incredibly out of balance already.

But whose fault is it?  Not Level 3.  Comcast couldn’t help it either because Comcast end users are creating this demand.  According to Sandvine “In the United States, Netflix represents more than 20 percent of downstream traffic during peak times,” This means that Level 3 is about to become the source of 20% of the content the Comcast users request.  Even with Comcast being negligent in their peering agreement, it’s actually in their favor because they are not PAYING to have Level 3 deliver traffic onto their network.

Now let’s assume Comcast and Level 3 decide to add 27 more ports to their peering agreement for a total of 540 Gbit/s of capacity.  As Comcast stated, they expect Level 3 to send traffic at a 5:1 ratio.  That’s 500 Gbit/s from Level 3 vs. the 100 Gbit/s from Comcast.  Comcast believes this is a problem long term.  The only problem I see for Comcast is the same problem we have, end users who demand more and more traffic without any reason to pay more. Comcast is afraid they’ll end up an access provider and out of the content business. And that IS a problem for them.

Here’s the rub: It boils down to Comcast end users demanding streaming content and Comcast being pissed that their end users are using Netflix instead of Fancast for streaming.

Here’s an amazing thing to think about: if 20% of the Comcast traffic could be directed to Fancast instead of Netflix, it could be monetized directly and Comcast could see a 30% revenue growth like Netflix has seen this year.  I guess that explains the Netflix stock price of $193.42 (NFLX) and the Comcast stock price of $20.78 (CMCSA).  I think everyone can see that it’s still about the money.

Peace.

-Bil

To avoid interruptions to content carried by Level 3, Level 3 was forced to pay Comcast to deliver traffic to Comcast customers.  Traffic that Comcast customers requested.  Looks like Comcast is now an Internet toll booth operator and charging on both ends for access to and from it’s customers.  Comcast is billing for both ends of it’s network, billing based on CONTENT.  Bollocks.

Traditionally, Peering agreements allow the free flow of traffic between networks of this size.  It’s logical that I let you give me traffic for my customers and I give you traffic for your customers, without charge either way.  That’s what Comcast and Level 3 had, up until the beginning of this month.  Peering agreements are done by companies for the benefit of end users as well as their respective bottom lines.  In some cases, there can be an imbalance between the flow of traffic and special arrangements are made to compensate the sender of traffic.  That usually results on the sender billing the recipient for providing transit service.  So why is Comcast is taking the stance that they can bill Level 3?  Comcast feels that they’re getting more traffic from Level3 than Level 3 is getting from Comcast.  Duh, that is exactly what SHOULD be happening because Comcast serves end users who EAT traffic and Level 3 is a wholesaler.

Let me explain what Comcast should already know.  End users suck bandwidth, morning, noon and night.

For us, the ratio of downloaded traffic to uploaded traffic is 4:1.  That’s traffic that our end users are viewing, streaming, reading, watching or listening to.  They’re not pushing anything when compared to what they download and it’s only been growing.  And growing and growing!

Comcast has millions of end users and Level 3 is a wholesale carrier of Internet traffic.  But since there is an imbalance, I would have expected Level 3 to charge Comcast for their connection to Level 3, just like we buy a connection to Level 3.  But I think Comcast has an ulterior motive.  Or maybe two.

When a company makes a move like this, I wonder what caused the change to occur and in this case it’s blatantly obvious.  Comcast is pissed that Level 3 struck a deal to carry Netflix content.  I imagine that this just gets in the craw of Comcast, who would prefer to have their end users watch streaming content from a Comcast owned service. Specifically, a service Comcast can charge their end users for.  That’s it.  Would Comcast have done this to Level 3 if Netflix wasn’t involved?  I highly doubt it.  But Comcast can claim imbalance in the peering relationship and somehow charge Level 3.  Like the traffic imbalance didn’t exist before the Level 3 / Netflix deal…  Hahahaha.

What we know is this:  Comcast has end users.  End users cause traffic imbalances.   The peering relationship between Level 3 and Comcast has been out of balance for a LONG time, to the detriment of Level 3, who would normally charge a customer for Transit services.

Another note, it’s not like all the Comcast end users are going to start watching Netflix just because Level 3 is carrying the traffic.   Most Comcast end users haven’t got a clue who Level 3 is.   All they know is, Netflix is where to watch movies.  The agreement between Netflix and Level 3 isn’t going to make anyone go watch content at Netflix.

Yet another note; the Netflix / Level 3 deal doesn’t add any traffic for Comcast.  That traffic was already coming into Comcast, from any number of providers who had connections to Netflix.  And remember that Peering agreement?  With that in place, it hasn’t cost Comcast anything to have Level 3 carrying the Netflix traffic.  Netflix traffic was, and still is, being delivered to end users, the only difference now is that Level 3 is PAYING Comcast to deliver content that the end users of Comcast are requesting.  And If Level 3 doesn’t pay, then Comcast end users get hurt. And who does Comcast get to blame?  Level 3.

Comcast is making everyone pay to play.  Comcast is making End Users pay to get access to Netflix.  And Comcast is making content companies (like Netflix, albeit indirectly) pay to get access to Comcast end users.  Wow.  It finally happened and it only took 10 years.

So who needs Net Neutrality?  We all do.  Even the big boys.

Peace.

-Bil

—– UPDATE —–

I wrote this post Tuesday evening and left the office assuming all would be well if the FCC does what it should at it’s next meeting.   This morning, I read with excitement that the FCC has added Net Neutrality to their Dec 21st meeting agenda.  WooHoo!   Upon deeper reading it looks like the FCC has ALSO bent over for Comcast. To outline the FCC position, Chairman Julius Genachowski will outline his proposals in a speech today.  Let’s hope he has some testicular fortitude and stands up for the consumer.  Watch for further updates.

Some further reading that really pisses me off intrigues me:

Connected Planet: Net Neutrality and what’s at stake

FCC delays Net Neutrality vote — again

The Press Release from Level 3 regarding Comcast shenanigans

Comcast puts up a Tollbooth

This fracas is all about the MONEY!

Full of dignitaries and speeches, I was impressed by both Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and Senator Al Franken breadth of knowledge on what this highly charged but reasonably simple issue could mean to me, Minnesota and the nation.

I listened to FCC commissioner Michael J. Copps and commissioner Mignon Clyburn.  They are both on board to turn the FCC in the direction of a true consumer advocacy position.

I listened to many impassioned pleas for the FCC to stand up for consumer protection.  Most of the public comments came from community groups and individuals.

Lastly, I was fortunate enough to speak myself and wanted the FCC commissioners to know that not all corporations are opposed to enforced network neutrality.  In fact, this corporation is strongly in favor of it.

This morning, around the foosball table, we had a discussion about net neutrality and what it could mean to have corporations both owning the content and distribution mechanism.  This is something I commented on, tangentially, in January of 2000:

It's scary to think that one company can own the character I love, (Bugs Bunny) owns the studio he's drawn in (Warner Brothers), the cable network he shown one (The Cartoon Network), the cable company I use to view him (Paragon now called Time Warner) and now the Internet access (which I don't use) used to email my niece about his "cwazy antics".  

Is this the final step in the complete homongenization of our media?  I think it's a large step towards that goal.  The final step will be when all the bookstores, radio stations, television stations and even printing presses are owned by one company.

It's also appears to be a dark day for the proponents of openNET.  They're looking at an ever increasingly difficult battle to demand open access to the cable networks.  When Time/Warner had a subsidiary that provided Internet access to their subscribers, it was feasable that a third party such as AOL or Mindspring could gain access to those subscribers via a mutually beneficial arrangement.  All bets are off now that the
parent copany IS a Internet Access provider.

Maybe the question isn't what are the impacts of AOL / Time Warner.
Maybe the question is who will buy AT&T/MediaOne?

That was sent to the Pioneer Press when AOL was about to merge with Time Warner.   The battle OpenNet fought was lost.  The FCC actually went the opposite way and allowed telephone companies to shut out small independent ISPs (like us).  We cannot sell Internet access on the Cable networks and we’re not allowed to sell the new technologies on the Telephone networks.

I think the issues of the content being owned by the distribution network is still a problem.  The issue of consumers getting access to content is the biggest issue the Internet faces.  Technology to deliver that content continues to evolve very rapidly.  As we look back, the major stumbling blocks for consumers to get access to content has been legal or commercial restrictions.  The delivery mechanisms have been in place LONG before the legal battles are resolved.  This is the nature of capitalism.

Still net neutrality is more than just allowing equal access to content for consumers. Its equal access for business and entrepreneurs  who come up with new ideas of how to use networks.  It’s equal access for both sides of the equation, consumer and business.  If I search and find your product online, but when I try to get to your site, it’s slow, I’m moving on.  Without net neutrality, that problem will be exacerbated.

Adjunct to the content access issue are two issues that haven’t been mentioned because they further complicate the issue.  I think they’re rather important.

• Data Privacy.  All 6 of you who read this blog have heard me talk about this before.  Data privacy goes hand in hand with net neutrality.  If I’m net neutral, I DON’T NEED to know what you’re doing with the delivery network.  But if I’m not net neutral, I kinda gotta know what you’re doing so I can make sure you use my network the way I intend.  And if I know what your doing, then I can generate…
• Revenue.  Governments across the nations are struggling to balance their budgets and I fear that cable operators and telephone companies will bond together and promise huge rewards in added tax receipts if net neutrality is written out.  Network operators today can easily tell what packets are destined for where without breaking into the data.  Would it be hard for them to “tax” you for your traffic going overseas and promise that revenue to Uncle Sam?

This issue IS the largest issue facing the country right now.  Net neutrality underlies everything.  I URGE the FCC to take Internet service and place it back where it belongs, as a telecommunications service.  Protect consumers and businesses alike by creating a playing field where traffic is safe and secure and equal.

Peace.

Bil

In 1997 I spent some time lobbying at the Minnesota Legislature and the Minnesota Public Utilities commission about the differences between a data connection and data communications.  The differences may seem plainly obvious to those of us in the Internet / Cable / Telephone industries, but for those milling around on the hill, they can’t quite grasp the difference between a carrier pigeon and the message tied to it’s leg.  This analogy was too esoteric for those who were approaching dementia so I changed the analogy to a letter carried by a postal service.  They seemed to understand that governments should regulate the postal service, but not the contents of the letter.  You tell me, which part of that analogy resembles a connection and which resembles information?  Pretty obvious, huh?

While it has been obvious for a long time that a telecommunication service is HOW you connect, I think the codgers on the hill got fouled up in the language. The word telecommunication contains that magic word, communication.  When you hear communication, you immediately think of what you DO with a voice service, a cable television service or the Internet.  But we in the industry all know that the Internet, voice, cable television, or anything you DO with a telecommunications service is an information service.

We all use telecommunications services AND information services everyday.  Honestly, it’s difficult to think of a reason to have a telecommunications service without an information service laid on top of it.  I admit that they are so closely tied together that most often you need one to utilize the other.  But there are so many methods of delivering information services that there really is a need for separation.

And that’s how we buy most of our services.  We buy an Internet LINK/PORT and we buy Internet BANDWIDTH.  These are two line items on one invoice.  Sounds like the telecommunications companies already realize these are separately regulated items.

Way back in 2002 the FCC ruled that cable modem service was an information service.  This was dismaying to many ISPs.  Cable companies could legally block ISPs from delivering Internet on cable networks and this new ruling spelled out a path for the ILECs to shut the ISPs out of the DSL / high-speed Internet access market too!  And that’s exactly what happened.

Today Qwests third generation DSL offering is FTTN DSL, with dramatically higher connection speeds than the prior Qwest DSL offerings.  That’s a mixed blessing for consumers.  If consumers really want faster speed for their Internet access and want to stay on DSL, they have but 1 choice, buy from Qwest.  Consumers must buy a bundled telecommunications service and information service from Qwest if they want the higher DSL speeds.  Sadly, that means customers who want to remain loyal to ipHouse cannot.

Prior to 2002 consumers had dozens of ISPs to choose from.  Those same ISPs have been squeezed out of the market by a simple “reclassification” of broadband by the FCC.  Today, if you listen closely you can hear ISPs across the country rejoice at the thought of being able to buy connections again if the FCC is successful at retracing it’s steps.  It might take another 8 years or even longer, but I think that progress is worth waiting for.

Peace.

Bil

All I can say is wow.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation did some preliminary analysis of ACTA. What it comes down to is that ACTA is about to require that signatory countries impose liabilities on ISPs for their users’ behaviors. That means ISPs need to be enforcers/police/nannys for their users. And US ISPs will lose any protections they currently enjoy from the DMCA.

If you use the Internet to share copyrighted information, YOUR ISP could face penalties. Do you think ISPs will accept this? You might expect ISPs to be up in arms about ACTA, but instead they look like they might accept ACTA openly. By all counts ISPs were lucky the FCC lost the case against Comcast. Otherwise ISPs would have no way to be an enforcer! Just kidding.

With vertical ‘content to provider’ consolidation, the big ISPs have a vested interest in becoming an enforcer. Remember, they own some of the copyrighted data being “illegally” shared on their networks. My bet is that the big ISPs are going to start throwing users to the lions as fast as they can.

I can also see that the US government is troubled by copyright infringement on the net. They HATE p2p networks. But thanks to provisions they worked out in the early 90′s for promoting the growth of the Internet, they can’t directly legislate for ISPs to become copyright enforcers. It’s easier to sign onto a treaty…

ACTA is going to seriously challenge US law, possibly overturning rulings by the US Supreme Court.

Maybe “wow” is an understatement.

On a somewhat related but adjunct topic, Steve Jobs recently let the world know his opinion on Adobe’s Flash. Steve put together a nice letter explaining his thoughts and reasons on why Apple has not incorporated Flash on it’s newest technology.

I admit, I’m sometimes frustrated that I can’t view a website on my iPhone because it’s a Flash site and even cursed Steve under my breath. But I can see Steves point.

So does Charlie Stross. Charlie has a theory that might explain what is really going on at Apple. Apple seems to be able to see into the future and Charlie thinks they’re seeing the end of the PC.

How is this “somewhat” related to ACTA?

Simple.

Industry leaders are pushing towards the 3 screens and a cloud scenario. The basic idea is to have all your content accessible to all screens. This would be great, right? Yes, it would. My content available on any device I own would make life a little simpler.

And if copyrighted content is all online, located in large warehouses and I can only license ACCESS to the content, copyright enforcement becomes easy. Very easy.

Right now, Apple keeps 29¢ for each 99¢ sale on the iTunes store. So why should Apple change its model? Steve realizes that maintaining a strong vertical market for content and the devices that consume content requires the strong ENFORCEMENT of copyright. That enforcement is much easier if the copyrighted content is not on the device, but in the warehouse…

Apple realizes that a strong enforcement of copyright is the ticket to maintaining revenues for Apple, not for the holders of copyrighted materials.

The iPad is a reasonable device to view content on, regardless of it’s copyright status. The iTunes store is a great place to purchase or even license content from, especially is you own the copyright… And if you’re Apple, you can change your model to let consumers view content through a device you totally control. Once the content is in the “cloud” you never let consumers actually HAVE a copy of the content (yeah yeah, if I can see it, I can copy it, I know). but I can see copyright infringement beginning to solve itself, which draws in more people with content they want to protect, which enlarges the offering to consumers, which brings more profits to everyone, which makes everyone happy. Right? Right.

WRONG.

Aged consumers like me want to be able to share what moves us. I enjoy giving books and CDs and DVDs to my friends. It’s exciting to see someone light up when they connect to a piece of art like I do. More importantly, I want artifacts I can hand down to my kids that they can hand down to their kids. I expect that I will bequeath my iTunes account to my children. But for some reason it does not have the same heft as that first edition of The Hobbit by Tolkien.

It appears that content in the cloud will protect copyright. But if content really IS king, then the secrets that the next generation iPhone might have held could explain the reaction the “police” had to Jason Chen. What else could explain the over-reaction by the law? Not protecting copyright.

Peace.

-Bil

First off I found out that the FCC can’t protect consumers from big bad corporations. It’s no fault of their own. Big bad corporations spend LOTS of money making sure that the law is in their favor. It was expected that the court would rule (a PDF of the ruling is here) to allow Internet providers to restrict access in order to “manage” their networks.

From the Internet provider side, this makes some technical sense. We need to be able to throttle traffic in order to meet Service Level Agreements and maintain quality service. How we manage our network is part of what sets us apart from our competition.

But content providers are worried that their content will play second fiddle to the content owned by the provider. This seems logical to me too. If we have content that competes with the content provider, why should we give the content provider a free ride to our consumers?

Because that’s what net neutrality is.

I think it’s reasonable to assume that a consumer does not really care who owns the content, as long as access to the content is not restricted in any fashion by their access provider. And that’s exactly how ipHouse operates.

Way back in 1997 I posed this exact conundrum and worried about what happens when one access company / distributor owns the content I want to view? Will I be required to have a Time Warner connection in order to view Bugs Bunny? Will I need a Comcast connection to see MTV online? Today, no. But what about tomorrow? Big corporations without watchdogs will do whatever they want, just watch.

I waited a few days after the ruling to see what the feedback was going to be. This is such a fascinating problem that people have a hard time taking sides. You tell me, should consumers be upset by this ruling? It seems some people just can’t tell if they should be upset or not.

In other fascinating news, a local jeweler gets lambasted by social media and wonders if the publicity generated by the “failed” advertisement offsets the publicity generated by the response to the ad…

Really, you may not have known who R. F. Moeller was a few days ago, but you might know now. This is exactly what social media is all about, responding socially to what companies do in the marketplace. Consumers have a voice, and social media lets those voices be heard, loud and clear. Some might think that this is a win for R. F. Moeller. The amount of publicity they’re receiving might outweigh the scar. Only time will tell…

Then along comes a reminder that some crazy new treaty will put ISPs on the hook for our customers bad deeds. What are people thinking?

All these things make me ogle at the wonder that is the Internet. But it leaves me wondering, is it time to take a break from the Internet?

Nah.

Peace.

Bil