Free Press: Metered Billing Going Nowhere FastGroup suggests throttling vs. metering a bogus debate... 02:46PM Monday Aug 11 2008 by Karl Bodetags: prices · business · bandwidthThe FCC's decision to "sanction" Comcast for throttling P2P traffic has shifted the network neutrality discussion from throttling to caps and metered billing. Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett, frequently a well-quoted cheerleader for the cable industry, suggested to a number of news outlets last week that if Comcast can't throttle (which they still can if it's transparent and targeted), usage based pricing is their " only viable option." That clearly annoyed consumer group Free Press, who issued an essay (pdf) saying that the supposed need for either a throttled or metered connection is a "false choice." The arguments for the “need” to switch to limitation pricing essentially rest on the premise that we’ve somehow reached a magical bandwidth threshold that throws the entire industry pricing model out the window. We are being told that despite predictable growth, supply can no longer keep up with demand. The old "oversubscription" model has failed, and the only way to recoup costs and manage user behavior is through metered pricing. In reality, analysis shows that Internet growth is more than manageable with fairly inexpensive network upgrades. Particularly egregious users, whom ISPs say consume the vast majority of network resources, can simply be migrated to more expensive (and perhaps even business) tiers. Carriers are primarily interested in metered billing as a way to minimize the competitive impact of broadband video on their TV revenues. For their part, Free Press seems convinced that despite all the talk of metered trials, nothing will actually come of them: It is quite reasonable for prices to reflect costs. But there is simply no indication that the underlying cost
structure of the ISP market has been or will be radically transformed by the predictable increases in bandwidth consumption. It is likely that ISPs will once again abandon this flirtation with limitation pricing and instead shift to more sensible solutions. AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner Cable are all exploring the idea of usage-based billing. AT&T recently called such a pricing migration "inevitable," and a company spokesman repeated that position to me this morning. "Given the usage trends we're seeing, a form of usage-based pricing for those customers who have abnormally high usage patterns is inevitable," says AT&T spokesman Brad Mays. "Usage based pricing is one way to deal fairly with Internet usage, which is very uneven among broadband users."
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- Martin, Comcast, Continue Lover's Feud
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punker
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BurntCricket
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Nightfall
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| Re: Zero justification for it said by Dogfather  :And when the ISPs crying about capacity are forced to turn over their data, like Bell Canada, turns out they're lying out their ass. U.S. metered billing and caps has nothing to do about capacity and everything about protecting their PPV VOD revenues from competitors like Apple, Netflix, Microsoft, Amazon and others. Link? Source?
I haven't seen a single bit of data from ISPs showing their capacity at the node or national level and what they have available. Would be helpful to see that data since you apparently have seen it. | |
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Matt
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| said by Nightfall :said by Dogfather :And when the ISPs crying about capacity are forced to turn over their data, like Bell Canada, turns out they're lying out their ass. U.S. metered billing and caps has nothing to do about capacity and everything about protecting their PPV VOD revenues from competitors like Apple, Netflix, Microsoft, Amazon and others. Link? Source? I haven't seen a single bit of data from ISPs showing their capacity at the node or national level and what they have available. Would be helpful to see that data since you apparently have seen it. What he is referring to is the congestion that Bell Canada claimed left them no other choice but to enable throttling.
When they posted the numbers, they were simply laughable. | |
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August 11th, @04:05PM
| Re: Zero justification for it said by Matt :said by Nightfall :said by Dogfather :And when the ISPs crying about capacity are forced to turn over their data, like Bell Canada, turns out they're lying out their ass. U.S. metered billing and caps has nothing to do about capacity and everything about protecting their PPV VOD revenues from competitors like Apple, Netflix, Microsoft, Amazon and others. Link? Source? I haven't seen a single bit of data from ISPs showing their capacity at the node or national level and what they have available. Would be helpful to see that data since you apparently have seen it. What he is referring to is the congestion that Bell Canada claimed left them no other choice but to enable throttling. When they posted the numbers, they were simply laughable. Thanks!
What I would like to see is a breakdown of all the major ISPs done by a 3rd party showing this kind of data. In the end though, the decision to cap is up to the provider. The consumer doesn't have a say in it.
EDIT:
The article you posted had to do with P2P Throttling. While the information is useful, what I would like to see is even a further breakdown from each node. Total amount of nodes saturated really doesn't help much. Ah well. | |
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Dogfather
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Laguna Hills, CA | Re: Zero justification for it That data would be a closely guarded secret because like Bell Canada, their data won't support their doom and gloom assertions. | |
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Dogfather
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Laguna Hills, CA | Re: Zero justification for it Short of a Mission: Impossible action, there will be no getting their data. It would take a job-losing leak of industry shattering proportions. | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | fiberguy
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August 11th, @06:39PM
| Re: Zero justification for it The very same is said here in the Twin Cities.. That statement about the top 3% using about the same, or more, than the rest of the 97% is echoed around in different systems..
If people actually saw these numbers in person, at the actual computer screen showing the data, people would flip and often not believe it.
Personally, I have no issue with caps, but would like to see them higher.. Comcast wants to do a 250gb cap, rather, I think 500gb is more reasonable, maybe a little higher. Further, passing the cap doesn't mean charges or cut off, personally, I'd rather see the connection slowed to that of a 1.5/256 line. If people want to run wide open connections for everyone else to take files from them.. fine. But when their line becomes almost unusable to the account user him/herself, maybe they'll think twice about opening up their connections to everyone and keep their bandwidth to themselves.
Further, as networks continue to be upgraded, the caps should also reflect reality. | |
| | | | | | | | | | jaminus
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| Re: Zero justification for it Why slow down high users, when you can just make them pay more?
I'd be fine with a base price of $50 per month up to 200GB, then $0.25 GB at normal speed after that -OR- you get slowed down to the lowest priority during peak hours where congestion is an issue.
Make the hogs (like myself) pay and they'll either cut back, or at least they'll bear the burden of the added strain they induce on the last-mile. | |
| | | | | | | | | | fiberguy
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| Re: Zero justification for it said by jaminus :Why slow down high users, when you can just make them pay more? In the DSL model I'd agree with you.. make them pay more. Still, I think it should be close to the Fair and Flexible model that Sprint once had with cell phone use. If you go over, they just upgrade you to the next plan for that month.
As for cable, it's a little different. The lines were built for residential use.. they weren't designed for heavy users. In fact, some cities/systems won't let residential homes sign up for business accounts just because of the implied heavy use in that area. The problem is that you have to cut the heavy users back to some degree, not necessarily allow an overage fee, because in a node model, and say you luck out and have a lot of heavy users in one area, they will slow the node down for everyone. You can split the node, but in some areas that's either a costly move OR not worth it if there is a high churn rate in the area.
In some nodes where there are higher rental homes/apts, you split the node and the people move to another node, that split was for nothing. And, in lack on contracts, you never know if the node split would be necessary for too long.
One thing that COULD work is a contract term on heavy users too. If a node split has to be done, at least those causing high use would be held to that contract, no ETF, and paid to term, for the trade of node splitting.
Yes, I realize that the last option is not user friendly, but neither is capital expense for a few people either.  Some operators are actually okay with seeing a few problematic customers become someone else's problem.
I still, also, say that we're in a turning point in the history of the internet where the service and the content are growing at a fast paced and a bit off balance.. I think all of this issue of heavy use will go away in the next 8 years. | |
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Dryvlyne
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| All the more reason for those top 3% users to be migrated to a business tier or risk being disconnected. There is no way in hell any ISP can justify usage-based billing to make it "fair" to everyone who uses the Internet. Quite the contrary, it would be quite UNfair for the vast majority of users to have to pay for the abuse of such a small minority. Furthermore, as you've noted, ISP's have the means to identify specific users that are placing such extreme demands on their network.
The idea that it would somehow be 'fair' for the ISPs to just throw everyone into a new pricing model because of the actions of a small minority is simply ridiculous! | |
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fireflier
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| Re: Zero justification for it Indeed. If as the comcast network engineer showed, they know down to the node and account who is running flat-out, they should be dealing with those customers rather than using them as justification to impact everyone.
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| said by Nightfall :Here in the city of Grand Rapids, the top 3% of their customers use more bandwidth than the bottom 97% combined. So. That is a FUD claim unless you ALSO back it up with the amount the percentage of total available bandwidth that is actually being used. If the total usage is 95% of the available bandwidth the fact that those 3% are using more of the 95% than the other 97% of the users is not important. Only if the usage is 100% of capacity does the split possibly become an issue. | |
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Anon0
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| Re: Zero justification for it said by Nightfall :My main point in my post, in case you missed it, was that the total amount of bandwidth used per account and per node, and how much is available is there. The ISPs have been keeping track of this info for years.
But that doesn't really matter. ISPs are making the claim that they have to enforce bandwidth caps on users or their system will be unable to handle the extra load due to demands for things like streaming video. Who cares how much the individual users are using? What matters is how much bandwidth there's still available for everyone. Even if 3% of users are using more bandwidth than everyone else, if there's still more than enough bandwidth for all users then ISPs cannot say their infrastructure will be overloaded. It's twisting the statistics to make them say what you want them to. | |
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Nightfall
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| Re: Zero justification for it said by KrK :That's going to change though. More and more "regular users" are going to be moving up the ranks when they start ACTUALLY using their connections for services appearing in infancy on the Net now. The problem is that ISP's have enjoyed and telecom providers have exploited for profit for years the people who buy high speed lines and then use very little. (Hell even I fall into this class.) So now they are scared not so much for network capacity but for profits as they realize that soon the gravy train will be ending and regular Joe Sixpack connections will be starting to use their connections for actual useful services and actually want to use more then 5% of the bandwidth they pay for.... I have to agree with you. The ISPs profits are going to sink even further when this day comes. Once again though, I am not arguing this point at all. Merely that the data these ISPs are keeping on their customers and the "congestion" on their network is well documented and kept track of. | |
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TK Junk Mail
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| Re: Zero justification for it said by en102 :Is there a reason WHY they are attempting to sell higher data rates than they can support ?Eg. If they can only support 6Mbps, why attempt to sell 20Mbps and put a cap on it ? Yes. It is called marketing. And it is used to appeal to the average customer who are morons in most cases. Marketing isn't about logic and never has been. It is all about convincing people that they need something they really don't need.
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| If I'm interpreting what you're saying correctly, then I think you have it wrong.
Consider your average broadband user's consumption habits. They download large files infrequently, and the main thing they do is load websites, download songs, and the like.
Why would the typical user want a relatively narrow pipe they could saturate, when most people simply aren't downloading constantly?
Overselling hasn't emerged because consumers are stupid. It has succeeded as a business model because it makes sense. Even as a relatively high bandwidth user, I prefer a fast 16mb with monthly usage caps to a slower, uncapped connection. I want to be able to download 7 Gigs in an hour, and I don't have a problem if my ISP oversells its nodes to a point.
Residential broadband providers don't ever claim you can use your connection all the time. BroadbandReports.com users may want an uncapped pipe, but it'd mean much higher prices, which is unacceptable to the typical broadband user. | |
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nightdesigns
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| It's a pure money grab by the ISP's.
I'm not even a P2P User, but running a Slingbox, Having Tivos that pull from amazon downloads, Watching You-Tube, Purchasing from I-Tunes, Music Streams and such, watching olympics online, Vonage, Off-Site File Backup, a VPN connection into my parent's business, and I'm just about to get the Netflix Roku box I'm probably going to be over my limit. Not including the Roku box, I was at 100GB downloaded last month.
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| Considering the degree to which DOCSIS 1.1 networks are oversubscribed, I can believe that cable companies have some congestion issues, but those should be alleviated by DOCSIS 3 at least in part. However, the telcos involved (Bell Canada, at&t) are almost certainly just trying to make a few more bucks by jumping on the bandwagon, and ranting about inevitability in hopes that eventually enough people will believe them. | |
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Dogfather
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Laguna Hills, CA | Re: Zero justification for it But since not all cable systems are seeing these localized upstream channel saturation they can pick and choose the "worst" case cable systems to upgrade. | |
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See 14 replies to this post | |
mrhuggles
join:2007-03-29
Ames, IA | non tv related isps if there are any isps that dont make money from not having ppl stream TV, then those isps wont have to do that right? so then they should become very popular :P | |
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hwstar
@myoverland.net
| Show 'em by disconnecting your cable TV service Cable TV is the biggest rip-off and time waster. I have better things to do than watch advertising-laden programming which I must pay for the privilege of receiving.
If you must watch TV, watch over-the-air channels, use Netflix, or get your programming off the Internet, oe ven better, seriously cut back on watching TV altogether.
I'd like to see more of those tubular filters installed on
cable TV service drops which only allow cable modems to work
and block TV service. People need to wake up and realize ho much of their life they are wasting by watching TV.
The sooner we Americans realize there are better ways to spend your free time than subscribing to cable TV and to watching TV programming peppered with advertising, the better off we'll be. | |
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See 6 replies to this post | |
funchords
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|  Several reasons why it won't happen
•Moore’s Law, and its corollaries, all indicate that technology grows cheaper, or its capability increases, by a factor of two every 24 months or so. Networking technology is no different. Has your broadband bill gone down by half? Is your ISP bringing you about twice the speed and capacity than it brought to you two years ago? If not, then its a good bet that your ISP's costs of delivering the same level of service to you have dropped during this time and they simply would rather not increase the network's capacity as fast as you would like them to.
•The trend is always toward flat rate. Dial-up Internet access – these were pay-by-the-minute plans first, then flat rate. AmericaOnline (AOL) had a per-hour charge, then went flat-rate. Long Distance was heavily metered, now most plans are flat-rate. Wireless telephone service was by-the-minute, and is quickly heading toward flat-rate. Once technologies like Internet Access are started, they become less expensive over time and eventually wind up to be flat rate.
•Consumption on IP is not easily metered. Dial-up, Long-Distance, and Cellular telephone calls are (or were) billed by the minute. MMS/SMS messages are billed by the message. It’s going to be difficult to find an agreed-upon standard for measuring by-the-byte Internet use. The Internet is a best-effort network, and not every packet that starts in your direction arrives intact. Sometimes it is dropped by the router just upstream from you, or sometimes it is dropped further up. Sometimes the packet arrives damaged and has to be repeated, and sometimes a repeat is not necessary (depending on the protocol). Sometimes the packets you receive or generate aren’t even yours – such as the traffic generated by Internet worms, the approximately 100 daily spam messages most Internet mailboxes get, or the ever-growing size of the ads present on most web pages. If Cable ISPs think that the per-subscriber support costs are high now, imagine the costs over billing disputes over undelivered or duplicated traffic! It's just not worth it.
•It’s an elephant-gun approach. The cable industry (and let’s remember, this is pretty much a cable industry yarn that’s being spun – AT&T and Verizon are not actually showing tremendous interest in it) reminds us that somewhere around 5% of the users are causing 95% of the problem. Those are the kind of numbers that Mr. Pareto would call a “no brainer.” So rather than retool how broadband is delivered to our nation, are we really to believe that we’re not going to first try coming to deal specifically with these 5%?
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GarthAnon
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|  Re: Several reasons why it won't happen
said by funchords :•Tests conducted nationwide by Project Glasnost indicated that only Comcast and Cox – just two ISPs – were significant interferers with P2P uploads using the specific technique that the FCC ruled against. If only two ISPs were doing it, then it takes an incredible leap of logic to conclude that the entire ISP industry is going to be switching to overage fees tomorrow. Except for the fact that several DPI vendors and traffic shaping vendors exist, some of which are public companies with healthy revenues.
The Glasnost tests highlighted some specific uses of TCP Resets, which are of course used when network devices are installed in a so-called off-line or out-of-line mode. And the Glasnost method really was trying to root out one particular vendor method.
But what of the majority of networks, such as wireless data networks, which chose to install these as transparent, in-line or on-the-wire devices? A recent study in Europe found that DSL provider BT and other providers are not using resets but are instead throttling down P2P and all other non-web traffic at peak times. If what is probably the largest DSL provider in the UK is doing that, it is probably fair to say that some ISPs in the North American market are doing so as well. So these users may not get a reset to slow their P2P activity, they'd just see that traffic slowed down generally according to the SamKnows study.
Is there a similar study going on in the North American network? Or will rhetoric substitute for data collection? Perhaps the SamKnows model could be a good one to follow.
Reference 1: »www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/07···ottling/
Reference 2: »www.samknows.com/broadband/pm/PM···r_08.pdf (SEE PAGE 36)
From page 36:
However, in the case of both BT and Plus Net we see something rather different. Whilst the port 80 test performed very well at all times, non port 80 traffic drops to nearly 15% of the line speed on BT connections during peak hours. The cause of this can without doubt be attributed to traffic shaping – the practice of prioritising one type of traffic over another. The term “traffic management” is also frequently used by some providers.
Plus Net openly admits and advocates their traffic shaping policies on their website, so these results were to be expected for them. However, BT is not so forthcoming, and the breadth and scale of the activity is rather surprising. In fact, the same characteristics can be seen when looking at any of the BT connections we monitored individually – including business connections and also including two connections that were used only by the monitoring units we installed. This suggests that the policy is applied universally, regardless of product and regardless of usage volume. However, it should be noted that it is this shaping that likely helps their port 80 (HTTP) speedtest results to perform so well. Whilst some may see any form of traffic shaping or traffic management as a bad thing, if you are not a peer-to-peer user or a heavy downloader then BT’s and PlusNet’s practices will actually benefit you. Future work will examine how these policies affect other “interactive” applications, such as
SSH, VoIP and video streaming.
It may also surprise some to note that certain other ISPs are not demonstrating similar dips for non port 80 traffic. The possible reasons for this are numerous:
- They could be traffic shaping based upon volume rather than traffic type (as Virgin Media do);
- Their traffic analysers could be more intelligent or configured differently to those of BT’s and recognise that this was not real peer to peer traffic, and thus not shape it;
- They could not be employing traffic shaping at all – the equipment required to do this properly is very expensive.
said by funchords :• Moore’s Law, and its corollaries, all indicate that technology grows cheaper, or its capability increases, by a factor of two every 24 months or so. Networking technology is no different. It really depends where your congestion is at the moment, doesn't it? I would guess most ISPs are moving to 10Gbps, 40Gbps, and higher in their core. So then you have either access network congestion or congestion between the end office or DSLAM and the core. In both cases, my guess is that the process is rather labor intensive and physical.
So what about labor costs? Do we expect labor costs to decline along these lines as well? Are we advocating for people to take such pay cuts? Has it gotten cheaper to go through local permitting to dig up streets and pull fiber? Or do local zoning laws and construction costs increase over time? That highway that cost $2M to build 20 years ago may cost $200M now, for example.
said by funchords :• The trend is always toward flat rate. Dial-up Internet access – these were pay-by-the-minute plans first, then flat rate. AmericaOnline (AOL) had a per-hour charge, then went flat-rate. Long Distance was heavily metered, now most plans are flat-rate. Wireless telephone service was by-the-minute, and is quickly heading toward flat-rate. Once technologies like Internet Access are started, they become less expensive over time and eventually wind up to be flat rate. Wireless is a great example: it is now tiered. And where a few companies have trialed unlimited, they've ended up with tiered services. So perhaps you do not get a pure usage model like electricity, gas, or water, and instead get a wireless-style hybrid. Perhaps that is a healthy balance, and perhaps it won't work. Only the market will tell. But to expect a static pricing model over time is probably unrealistic - market dynamics constantly change and evolve over time.
said by funchords :• Consumption on IP is not easily metered. Dial-up, Long-Distance, and Cellular telephone calls are (or were) billed by the minute. MMS/SMS messages are billed by the message. It’s going to be difficult to find an agreed-upon standard for measuring by-the-byte Internet use. Except for the fact that the wireless data companies already meter by the byte and have tiered bandwidth plans. Or they include it for "free" in $100+/month plans. (My iPhone bill is killing me.)
said by funchords :•It’s an elephant-gun approach. The cable industry (and let’s remember, this is pretty much a cable industry yarn that’s being spun – AT&T and Verizon are not actually showing tremendous interest in it) reminds us that somewhere around 5% of the users are causing 95% of the problem. Those are the kind of numbers that Mr. Pareto would call a “no brainer.” So rather than retool how broadband is delivered to our nation, are we really to believe that we’re not going to first try coming to deal specifically with these 5%? So what if an ISP came up with a byte plan that was sufficient for 95% of users, and which would only affect that 5% of users? If you do not believe that this pricing method works, what other method would you propose to signal to that 5% of users?
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