Would you pay the telco to use specific services on the Internet?

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freitasm

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#73672 19-Dec-2010 11:46

Two companies put out a new product that would allow telcos and ISPs to charge Internet users on a services-use case.

This was reported by Wired (Mobile carriers dream of charging per page) and would most likely be the death of Net Neutrality. A 1.5MB PDF download is available. Some interesting pages:

p.5: "Challenge" is how to generate new revenues from users who visit sites such as Facebook, YouTube, or use services like Skype and BitTorrent. Looking at the illustration it gives the impressions that telcos/ISPs are leaving money behind by supporting those sites/services - there's a "broken bridge" on the way to generating lots more money...

p.7: "DPI Integrated into Policy Control and Charging"... A way to say that telcos/ISPs can use this product to allow, block or give priority user access to specific services, based on fees. Note that the slide is made with Vodafone as a partner in mind (it doesn't say it is, but used as an example). In this example the telco could charge $0.02/MB for priority Facebook access, $3/month for direct access to Skype services, $0.50 monthly for a limited speed YouTube site, and unlimited access to Vodafone's own website.

How do you see this kind of moneytisation?

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#419036 19-Dec-2010 12:06

it would be the death of any ISP that moved toward this model - as long as there were other ISPs that didn't.

NonprayingMantis

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#419045 19-Dec-2010 12:45

dunno,

part of me thinks it could lead down a very bad road where innovative new content is very hard to get hold of because all the 'big boys' (skype, google, facebook etc) have the market sewn up with priority traffic handling through partnerships with ISPs.
Imagine if Myspace had this kind of agreement with ISPs a few years ago - e.g. prioritise MySpace and, by extension, degrade all other social networking. Would Facebook have been able to takeoff to anywhere near the same extent it has done?

The other part of me thinks it might be pretty cool to have, say, a Broadband plan where I can prioritize (maybe even unmeter) Skype for $2 a month and so get a much better service than a 'normal' plan.

I currently pay ~$80 for 40GB of traffic with no prioritization (AFAIK anyway), I certainly wouldn't mind paying $80 for only 10GB, but where Skype, Youtube, Steam, and PSN were all prioritized and unmetered. That is where the vast majority of my traffic comes from anyway, so it would effectively give me an unlimited plan for the traffic hungry websites.

ETA: this is basically happening right now with certain content. some ISPs will be unmetering iSky, TVNZOnDemand, TiVo etc.

Some are caching Youtube and other sites.
Both unmetering and caching is effectively giving priority to that traffic.
sure they aren't transparently charging for it @ $2/month or whatever, but the cost of doing it must be built into their price, so the effect is the same.

Behodar

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#419047 19-Dec-2010 12:52

No. I already pay per GB and don't expect to pay more for specific services.

richms

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#419068 19-Dec-2010 14:16

If they charge, they have to deliver right? Well not if you base it on what ISPs provide at the moment.

I can just see it making non paid for services worse than already, and the paidfor ones working as badly as they do now.

So no, a bad idea.

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freitasm

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#419070 19-Dec-2010 14:20

richms: If they charge, they have to deliver right? Well not if you base it on what ISPs provide at the moment.

I can just see it making non paid for services worse than already, and the paid for ones working as badly as they do now.

So no, a bad idea.

Very good way of putting it...

SteveON

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#419071 19-Dec-2010 14:20

Your going on about the whole change that is purposed in the USA right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality

If you ask me, YES - OMG yes?

Yes I would pay extra, BUT only for guaranteed QOS for those apps. for example it drives me nuts how youtube/facebook/xnet/voip all die randomly. Sure I could go buy a better business plan with dedicated bandwith but I want true QOS.

greaneyr

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#419072 19-Dec-2010 14:23

It all depends. Where is the priority set? And higher priority than whom?

If I could buy higher priority to certain sites over everyone else hanging off my over-congested exchange watching dogs dancing on youtube, I'd be ok with it. However, if they had an arrangement with Facebook, for instance, that Facebook would allow priority access to their servers for users paying, that wouldn't sit so well. In all likelihood, Facebook would be selling that to the ISP at a cost, and the ISP would be onselling it to you with a markup. It's all very 'un-free' to me.

Thing is, if everyone buys it, how do you get 'priority' over anyone else? Say two people are both on the plan and are trying to visit a priority site... Who gets priority then? The one who pays, or the one who pays?

Lastly, what effect would it have on those not on the plan? Would their service just get that little bit slower again, but have complaints written off because DSL is 'fair use'?

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1080p

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#419079 19-Dec-2010 14:57

This would anger me.

If I pay for access to the internet then I want unfettered access to whatever (legally) is provided there.

I would move ISP the instant mine started using this policy and would consider moving country if all ISPs in New Zealand adopted this model.

NonprayingMantis

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#419089 19-Dec-2010 15:45

1080p: This would anger me.

If I pay for access to the internet then I want unfettered access to whatever (legally) is provided there.

I would move ISP the instant mine started using this policy and would consider moving country if all ISPs in New Zealand adopted this model.

as i mentioned above, most of them already do, to one extent or another.

vodafone/Ihug, Orcon, etc all unmeter isky - favouring it over other ondemand/live streaming content.
Telecom caches youtube - effectively giving it priority over other video sites.
they also unmeter caspa (Tivo content)
One isp (i forget which - slingshot maybe) caches steam - effectively giving it priority over other digital distribution methods.
another one (Orcon?) caches TVNZOndemand

most people are missing the major problem with this way of doing business.
They are worried about paying extra for their internet usage. however for the most part this kind of policy can (and is, so far) be done in such a way as to not cost the end user.

For example, instead of the customer paying $x to access unmetered isky, Sky will pay the isp $x per customer (or some other method of charging) so that the customer gets unmetered isky and so will always pick sky over other similar products.
The customer gets better sky, the isp gets better retention, and sky gets picked more often as a video deliver provider. win-win-win. the only people who lose are the other video providers who don't have the necessary scale to make such a deal with the ISP - which is what i talked about in my first post where the risk is that with this model innovation on the web will become stifled.

cbrpilot

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#419250 19-Dec-2010 23:38

NonprayingMantis:
as i mentioned above, most of them already do, to one extent or another.

vodafone/Ihug, Orcon, etc all unmeter isky - favouring it over other ondemand/live streaming content.
Telecom caches youtube - effectively giving it priority over other video sites.
they also unmeter caspa (Tivo content)
One isp (i forget which - slingshot maybe) caches steam - effectively giving it priority over other digital distribution methods.
another one (Orcon?) caches TVNZOndemand

That is an interesting way of looking at it. However it isn't a direct implementation of what Freitasm was talking about. The ISPs do not charge more for any of their cached traffic. And they are not prioritising this network traffic over other network traffic. My own opinion is that if an ISP were to do this type of thing it would have to be very well thought through and positioned. The suggested applications in Freitasm's quote are a bad example - I think just-about everyone would balk at paying extra for "premium access" to those sites. But how about this: would you pay extra to have your game or VPN traffic prioritised over other traffic? (i.e. a higher QOS applied within the ISP network - and thus less likely to be dropped). I think some people would - and I don't think that this is necessarily a bad thing. Would you pay more to have your VOIP traffic prioritised? It remains to be seen whether an ISP would start offering these type of traffic management techniques as standard features, or chargeable add-ons.

I do believe in the future that ISPs will start experimenting and making offers based on different traffic management techniques. Telecom's Go Large/Big Time products and Slingshot's All You Can Eat are examples of this. ISPs will want to innovate to increase the mean utilisation of their networks, and provide appropriate QOS to the services running over the top.

Unmetering is a slightly different question though. One could indeed argue that it does advantage one content provider over another - with the assumption that not all content providers are big enough to negotiate the same deal(s).

My views are my own, and may not necessarily represent those of my employer.

richms

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#419253 19-Dec-2010 23:49

I think what you meant to say is that the ISPs don't charge any _LESS_ for their cached traffic.

I end up paying the same exorbitant amount for data no matter if it comes from Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, or a cache at their rack in their data center. That to me is very messed up.

By the share nature of the obscene amount of shaping - sorry, "prioritization" being applied to the international links, they are making the cached stuff work at a better rate. Well in the case of slingshot, work full stop.

Richard rich.ms

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#419255 19-Dec-2010 23:52

The joys of a new found market... as far as a model for revenue gathering is concerned, company's have been trying to push people back through traditional media/retail channels...
Now that (in most respects at least) this has, if not given up, has at least been tempered, it's now a case of look at how they can monitise the system.
Perception is everything, the average consumer looks at and say 'I'm getting free isky' they're happy.... the implications, as mentioned about those other providers who can't afford to pay the dollars for promotion, they will be left out.
As an analogy, it's just like a supermarket, the suppliers pay for isle ends, displays and shelf spaces. This is exactly what will happen with ISP's if this method continues. I don't know about anybody else, but personally I prefer a bit of choice, albeit this means that I do have to pay more for some things...

Ragnor

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#419258 19-Dec-2010 23:57

I strongly prefer my communications services (phone, internet, mobile) separate from my media/content services so I would not stick with an ISP using that kind of model.

How are new innovative sites going to emerge with established legacy content services have backroom deals with communication providers to squash competition.

Monocultures suck imo.

NonprayingMantis

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#419260 20-Dec-2010 00:02

cbrpilot:
NonprayingMantis:
as i mentioned above, most of them already do, to one extent or another.

vodafone/Ihug, Orcon, etc all unmeter isky - favouring it over other ondemand/live streaming content.
Telecom caches youtube - effectively giving it priority over other video sites.
they also unmeter caspa (Tivo content)
One isp (i forget which - slingshot maybe) caches steam - effectively giving it priority over other digital distribution methods.
another one (Orcon?) caches TVNZOndemand

That is an interesting way of looking at it. However it isn't a direct implementation of what Freitasm was talking about. The ISPs do not charge more for any of their cached traffic. And they are not prioritising this network traffic over other network traffic.

it's a different way of looking at the same thing.

take a look at the graphic

now consider the way you pay for traffic over mobile internet now. Voda and Telecom both make their homepages and attached content free to browse (i.e. the data is unmetered), and although you pay for their mobile TV service, the data does not count towards your plan.
the only difference is that they do not currently have the ability to charge by the type of content you view outside of their own portal. the content does have different impacts to the network e.g. youtuibe is far more intensive than facebook, even for the same amount of data throughput.

these charges for the most part aren't being proposed as well as your normal allowance, they are being proposed instead of.

i.e. instead of paying $30 for 500MB (effective rate of 6c/MB) like you do now, you now pay, for example, 2c/MB for facebook, 10c/MB for skype, and 15c/MB for youtube. or you can pay $5/month to access youtube on an unlimited basis, or $2/month to access facebook on an unlimited basis. this is where the problems arise, because if facebook negotiates a good deal with the ISP they can make their content cheaper to access. Great for the customers, not so great for competition.

(btw, this is also exactly what Telecom and Vodafone are both doing right now with facebook. Telecom has facebook zero, Voda has 'buy a $6 data packand get unlimited facebook. Customers love it, facebook loves it, but if you ran a social networking site competing with facebook you would be fuming.

cbrpilot

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#419269 20-Dec-2010 00:37

NonprayingMantis:

it's a different way of looking at the same thing.

Yes agree that providers are already doing this to a certain extent, but the examples you (earlier) provided did not all fit that mould. The point I was trying to make was that caching vs unmetering (or charging a reduced rate) should be dealt with separately as they have little relationship (although one could argue that they should have a more solid relationship - but that's a different discussion).

My views are my own, and may not necessarily represent those of my employer.

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