PCWorld

Does Anyone Understand The Internet?

by Nick Brown on April 21, 2009

in Regulation, Tech & Telecom

I’m beginning to think “no” is the definitive answer.  While most tend to understand the basic concepts of Internet connectivity and its associated parts, it seems that it is becoming abundantly clear that terminology has been misused by media and public organizations such that no one really understands what they are even talking about anymore.

It’s understandable that people who don’t work in the telecommunications sector are unfamiliar with networking.  But a group of writers that should understand these concepts are the individuals that are paid to write for PCWorld.

Today, David Coursey discussed the recent decision of Time Warner Cable to back off its plans to test metered broadband service in an essay strangely entitled, “Why Metered Broadband Would Work”.  It’s odd, because he describes why TWC is up to no good and why metered broadband is greedy.

The column states that metering broadband service violates net neutrality and concludes that, “anything that hinders Internet neutrality hinders the development of new technologies and new business models.”

Where do I begin? First of all, net neutrality has nothing to do with metered broadband service.  Nothing.

Metered broadband has nothing to do with how fast your connection is.

Metered broadband is a cap on the total amount of data you transfer during a given billing cycle.  That’s it. There is nothing more to it than that.  It has nothing to do with giving certain packets priority.  It has nothing to do with preventing the use of certain applications or equipment (like a VoIP handset) on your computer.  It has nothing to do with blocking access to sites that have competing content.  And it has nothing to do with Quality of Service.

Let’s look at this in different terminology.  The speed at which you travel in your car has nothing to do with the number of miles you choose to travel in a given month.  If you were to rent a car, and your rental agreement dictated that you could not travel more than 100 miles in 30 days, (assuming speed limits and the police were not a factor) you could travel at whatever speed you desired until you traversed 100 miles.  In this case, whatever connection speed you have from TWC would not change.  If you had a 10 meg connection, you would still get a 10 meg connection.  The difference is the number of miles you could travel on the Internet in a given billing cycle, not the speed at which you could get there.

Interestingly enough, metered broadband is a new business model that Coursey claims Internet neutrality would hinder.  Since metered broadband has nothing to do with Internet neutrality, and the column claims that in a recession the last thing we need to do is hinder new models, then this was the perfect opportunity to allow the free market to test a new model.

Metered broadband does cap the total amount of data that an individual can transfer in a given month.  That is not a negative thing, though.  Transfer speeds and data transferred are two different things.  The first is the speed at which data could potentially be transferred to or from your computer.  These are commonly referred to as “downstream” and “upstream”.  Over a given billing cycle — generally a month — an individual receives data and sends data by surfing the Internet, receiving email, using instant messaging, etc.  The benefit of a bandwidth cap is that it creates tiers that allow for more affordable service, and open up the doors of barred entry to individuals that could not previously afford Internet service.

TWC reports that their users in the Austin, TX area averaged 5-6 gig a month.  A benefit of metered service is that if a user falls into this category, there is no reason for them to be spending $50-$75 a month for unlimited access.  This is similar to a cell phone plan, in that if you don’t talk 3,000 minutes a month, purchasing the 3,000 minute or unlimited plan would be a major waste of money when you could get a lower plan for far cheaper.  TWC was proposing lower-priced tiers combined with higher fees for heavy users. A relatively basic plan would have offered 5 GB a month for $29, and a more robust tier would have offered 15 GB a month for $40, all the way up to unlimited plans for $150.

Metered service could be a major benefit for most average or below average users.  The only people that it hurts are Bittorrent fiends.  Additionally, those that use larger amounts of data on movie streaming services would have probably fallen into a data tier that was similarly priced to what they were paying before a switch to metered service.

Something that Coursey hints at, but never comes right out to explain, is the concern that caps are in response to television and movie distribution on the Internet.  The implication is that monthly caps would deter individuals from watching TV online, causing them to return to the couch where profits are higher. It is a certainty that cable providers do not want to simply become sellers of bits.  But the individuals that are concerned of this notion that caps force individuals into higher caps, or that they are somehow being cut off from certain services is really just silly.

Consumers are not forced to use the Internet.  They have the right to determine how much data they will transfer in a month and purchase an appropriate tier.  This occurs every day when consumers purchase cell phones.  They purchase the tier that is suitable for their needs.  This approach by TWC opened the door to allow low volume users to have very affordable rates.  Yes, the higher cap tiers were arguably pricey.  But that isn’t a reason for the media to create such a false state of fear over the issue that the entire trial is pulled.  The free market would have caused those tiers to adjust and match companies offerings like Comcast’s 250 gig cap.

Coursey is right about one thing.  In these dreadful economic times, we don’t need to be hindering new business models.  It’s too bad the noise heavily outweighed the signal on this issue and caused TWC to back off on something that most likely would have saved the majority of their customers a great deal of cash.

Utah: Rated R for Ridiculous

by Nick Brown on March 10, 2009 · 1 comment

in Regulation, Tech & Telecom

Utah is on the verge of using it’s ‘Truth in Advertising’ bill to pass regulated enforcement of video game ratings.  The bill which was in some part drafted by Jack Thompson, the disbarred anti-violent games attorney from Florida, would fine retailers that sold games to underage customers up to $2,000 per incident.

The catch?  This only applies if they advertise that they conduct age verification, essentially encouraging retailers to remove all advertising that they check ID’s or age in some manner.  Retailers would be better off in this case not advertising in any way that they train employees to verify age before selling age restricted games.  This way if a slip up occurs—as it eventually will—the retailer wouldn’t be held accountable.

The legislation takes a giant step back considering that Patricia Vance, President of the not-for-profit ESRB ranking group, stated in an open letter to the Utah Congress that”

…the most recent such study reported in May 2008 found that national retailers refused to sell M-rated games to customers under 17 a remarkable 80% of the time, far surpassing the comparable rates of compliance for movies, DVDs, or music CDs rated for a mature audience…according to a recent audit, Utah video game retailers enforce their store policies regarding the sale of M-rated games an impressive 94% of the time — without any laws or requirements that they do so.  That level of compliance took many years to achieve, and speaks to the strong commitment of video game retailers to do the right thing.

Apparently a 94% success rate isn’t good enough for Utah who will ignore one of the best working models of self-regulation that any entertainment industry has ever seen or successfully implemented, and will instead take the opportunity to enforce government control in a way that will not prove successful and will cause greater problems down the line.

I whole heartedly agree with Matt Peckham of PCWorld when he says that,

Truth in advertising is important. No one wants to buy a “100% cotton” shirt that turns out to be 50% polyester or an LCD TV with a “full parts and labor three year warranty” that’s only honored for one. Retailers have basic authenticity obligations and consumers should have the right to take action and/or pursue remuneration when a retailer engages in deceitful advertising.

But voluntary self-regulation that hinges on an aesthetically amorphous value system resides in a legal gray area. No one’s going to disagree that selling a 50% polyester shirt as “100% cotton” is ethically wrong, deserving of legal consequences. But games ratings aren’t based on scientific analyses of the fiber content of a piece of fabric, and there’s plenty of disagreement over whether it’s the responsibility of stores or parents to enforce them. For some, game and movie ratings are simply advisory, and it’s up to parents to monitor what kids are up to, not some for-profit business, and most certainly not a bunch of at best tenuously culturally clued-in government bureaucrats.

Peckham’s insinuations that this is just the beginning are dead on.  And those like Jack Thompson that want to see violent or mature content banned from the face of the earth know just that, and are counting on it.  You see, when this model fails, politicians won’t return to the stage and admit they were wrong and redact the policy.  They will instead seek to legislate the issue even further and with a firmer grip.  This is simply the first flake in a snowball rolling down hill.